Jan 06 2010 at 9:00am
Yes, there is a fold
This website seems to proclaim that in web design, there is no “fold”. Okay, I do get the point. People do scroll and you don’t need to fuss about exactly how much a visitor sees at first glance, or try to cram all your links into that space. However, I do think there are some things you need to consider about what people first see when a page loads. At first glance a user needs to answer a few key questions. As Steve Krug advises in Don’t Make me Think:
- What is this?
- What do they have here?
- What can I do here?
- Why should I be here – and not somewhere else?
The user needs to have some clue as to whether this page or website will give them what they want (have the information they need, the products they want to buy etc.). In that sense, what appears in the fold – whatever size that is for them – is crucially important.
You also need to make sure that it’s evident that there is more content further down to scroll to. I recently visited this page on the Exercise TV site (screenshot). On my screen the fold ends around Jillian’s mid-thigh. With the blue background, the text ending where it does, and the visual focus on the photo, it wasn’t apparent to me that there is more content further down. I actually didn’t realize it until I clicked on the link to browse videos and realized that it pointed further down on the same page. With widescreen monitors the scrollbar may be out of direct view, so conscious design is needed to tell the viewer that they should scroll to see more.
Via For a Beautiful Web, where Stephen Frein has a useful comment.
