The Argument Against Filler Text

If you’re think­ing that filler text seems pret­ty bor­ing and uncon­tro­ver­sial, you’d be wrong. 

Sur­pris­ing­ly, there is a very vocal fac­tion of the design com­mu­ni­ty that wants to see filler text ban­ished to the orig­i­nal sources from whence it came. Per­haps not sur­pris­ing­ly, in an era of end­less quib­bling, there is an equal­ly vocal con­tin­gent of design­ers leap­ing to defend the use of the time-hon­ored tra­di­tion of greeking. 

The argu­ment in favor of using filler text goes some­thing like this: If you use real con­tent in the design process, any­time you reach a review point you’ll end up review­ing and nego­ti­at­ing the con­tent itself and not the design. This will just slow down the design process. 

Design first, with real con­tent in mind (of course!), but don’t drop in the real con­tent until the design is well on its way. Using filler text avoids the inevitable argu­men­ta­tion that accom­pa­nies the use of real con­tent in the design process. 

Those opposed to using filler text of any sort counter by say­ing: The ulti­mate pur­pose of any dig­i­tal prod­uct, whether a web­site, app, or HTML email, is to show­case real con­tent, not to show­case great design. You can’t get a true sense for how your con­tent plays with your design unless you use the real thing!

C/O https://placeholder.com/text/