by John McKown, President of Delaware.net | July 5th, 2007
The Fold, often referring to the horizontal division of a newspaper, now pertains to the bottom of a web browser window that divides the web page into viewable and non-viewable sections. A highly debatable topic, designing a web page so that most or all of the important content is above the fold is a thing of the past. In the early days of the web most users felt that scrolling a lengthy page was unnatural. Because of this, web designers would try to cram as much important content as possible into the upper regions of the site. This style of “cramming†information is still done today.
The other day, while meeting with a client, the fold was a topic of concern. After discussing all of the content that they wanted to appear on the home page, they mentioned trying to keep everything above the fold. Now this is something I hadn’t heard in a long time, but because of the print background of one of the attendees of the meeting, it was a valid concern. After getting back to the office, I did some research to find out if keeping content above the fold was really that critical. The data found was very interesting.
The following data and statistics were gathered by a company called ClickTale.
As always, this research is based on data that we collect with our service (ClickTale). We used a subset of about 120,000 page-views dated November 2006 to December 2006. In this research we will be analyzing only vertical scrolling behavior. The service records the height of the web pages, the height of the window and the bottom-most location the user scrolled to. (Unfolding the Fold, ClickTale Blog)
The first thing that really stuck out to me was the Global Statistics section. ClickTale found that:
- 91% of the page-views had a scroll-bar.
- 76% of the page-views with a scroll-bar, were scrolled to some extent.
- 22% of the page-views with a scroll-bar, were scrolled all the way to the bottom.
This information says it all. The majority of web sites are designed with scrolling and the majority of users scroll those sites to some extent.
Throughout the rest of the article ClickTale offers up more statistics followed by some great bar graphs. They go on to offer supporting information on the fact that most users scroll the entire length of an average sized web page. They may not read everything but they do scan it. Also discussed is why long pages are not bad at all. In this Web 2.0 day and age, long pages are part of the norm. With large, clear content sections and “clean, spacious†pages, the only choice as a web designer is to let the designs grow vertically.
As you can see, the fold is not something to fear. Most users will scroll a web page and think nothing of it. And if your out “chasing the fold,†good luck! With the ever-changing monitor size and the ever-expanding browser windows, it seems that the fold is something that will never be the same from one user to another.
I must agree with ClickTale and their recommendations. They offer a bulleted list that may just help you next time the fold is brought up in a creative meeting.
- Don’t try to squeeze your web page and make it more compact. There is little benefit in “squeezing†your pages since many visitors will scroll down below the fold to see your entire page.
- Since visitors will scroll all the way to the bottom of your web page, make life easier for them and divide your layout into sections for easy scanning.
- Minimize your written text and maximize images, visitors usually don’t read text – they scan web pages.
- Encourage your visitors to scroll down by using a “cut-off†layout.
Works Cited
July 5, 2007, From web site: http://blog.clicktale.com/?p=19
