The Myth of the Fold

In my 3.5 years at Bluhalo I’ve learnt that so called ‘best practice’ design methodologies come and go in fads. What is considered best one day is often turned on its head within a year or two. The fashion in the last few years has been that all important content must be ‘above the fold’. Information Architects and us designers often clash over this and don’t always see eye-to-eye. To us, this theory has always been a bone of contention.

So….I ask the questions….is the ‘fold’ as important as it once was and should we slavishly adhere to it at all costs?

Screen performance data and new research indicate that users are now far more prepared to scroll to find information and items below the fold. AOL did a small study on one of their sites - TMZ.com - and found that the most popular link was actually in the footer area at the bottom of the page. NB. Some of their pages can span 15,000 pixels in height! This in turn supports the ClickTale research that shows 76% of users scroll and that a good portion of them scroll all the way to the bottom, despite the height of the screen… ie. Scrolling behaviour is independent of screen height.



TMZ homepage screen shot

This ties in to the premise behind one of our earlier blog posts, about the website footer, which highlighted the fact it now as important to consider the whole web page in terms of content and not just the top 1/3.

Of course, there are always going to be key elements that must stay above the fold. Commercially critical ‘Call To Actions’, important bits of news/content, heavily used tools/functionality and signposting should be kept as visible as possible, but what you mustn’t do is blindly cram everything together in the hope of getting eyeballs. This simply will not work.

Remember…there is nothing wrong with space as part of an effective web design. After all, we all have to breathe and this will give us designers a bit more creative freedom and the chance to continue pushing the boundaries of digital design.

Natalie