When it comes to web design, there is a lot of talk around visitors missing important information because they have to scroll to see it. The idea is to keep this vital information ‘Above the Fold’.
What is ‘Above the Fold’?
“Above the fold” is a term that originated with newspapers. Stories featured in the top-half of the front page are “above the fold” of the paper. It’s the portion of the paper that editors believe sell a newspaper, because it is what people see on display in the newsstands or on counters.
The term has been transferred to website designs to mean what visitors see on the screen without scrolling down.
While “above the fold” is valid when it comes to web design, the interpretations of the statistics are often misguided. As such, applying the rule as an absolute can give you a website design that is not only outdated but difficult to use.
Sorting out the meaning from the misconceptions
So we know that when it comes to web design, “Above the fold” refers to the portion of the web page that a visitor can see when they first arrive at that web page, without needing to scroll down.
The statistics
The reason why “above the fold” gets so much attention is because a report came out about five years ago telling us that 80% of users spend their time above the fold, and only 20% go below the fold. This caused a wave of response from web designers and businesses to update their website designs to ensure the content fit “above the fold”
This is a pretty good argument for keeping everything above the fold, right? Wrong.
The real meaning of the results
The percentages of time spent above and below the fold, while accurate, speak of usage, rather than design. Further, it treats all websites (and pages) alike.
Most of the time you visit a website (excluding your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms), you have a purpose. There is something that you want, be it a product, or information, but you have a goal in mind. Therefore, when you get to a website, chances are the first thing you look for is the menu or the search box, so you can quickly get to the product or information you want.
Of course, 99.9% of web menus and search boxes are at the top of the page or in a sidebar “above the fold”. It makes sense then that when website use is measured, findings will show a high proportion of visit as a non-scrolling use of a website. This explains why the stats are so heavily skewed to “above the fold” usage.
But what happens when people get to the page they were looking for? They scroll. And scroll and scroll and scroll. Up and down we go.
In fact, most of us are so comfortable scrolling, we do it without even thinking about it. The onset of social media makes it so we can keep scrolling for as long as we want. When we get to the page we want, we love to scroll, which is why the most popular websites (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Pinterest, Amazon, blogs and news sites) embrace the scroll.
When is “Above the Fold” important?
Keeping vital information above the fold is important on your home page and landing pages. These are the places where people arrive with a purpose in mind, and you need to make it easy for them the find where they need to go to achieve that purpose.
Home and Landing pages:
- They need to be able to show the visitor what site they are on – who are you, what do you have to offer and how do people get to the page that fulfils the purpose of visiting the site – in a few seconds. A quick glance to establish if it is worth looking further on this site or navigating away to another site. That’s all you get on a home or landing page.
- In those few seconds you also want people who are on your website for a purpose to see your most important thing (an event, a sale, an award) before they click away to their intended page. The promo, highlight or sales message that flashes through their brain and (hopefully but not always) triggers a response – ooh, what’s this then?
- Navigation and search (if you have it), need to be at the top. This is where people expect it to be. If it isn’t there, they aren’t going to spend time hunting for it.
- Contact information at the top – either your phone number or a big obvious button with
CONTACT US on it, at the very least have a contact tab in your menu bar. That’s because sometimes all people are there for is to get your number or location or email you.
Any other information on your homepage should be just a quick reference (and link) to the pages with all the good information. If your homepage goes on and on it actually puts people off scrolling. Too much clutter makes your landing pages hostile to visitors using mobile devices.
Sub-pages: where the good information goes
When it comes to sub-pages, you still want to make the information clear and accessible. People need to know quickly what page they are on. However, once that is made clear, don’t be afraid to have important information below the fold. Yes you should still place the highlights, or the most important information near the top. But people WILL scroll to find what they are looking for. In fact, they much prefer to scroll below the summarised info at the top of the page than to click through again to another sub-page for the next instalment of information. People also prefer to scroll down to read well laid out and spaced content than be forced to try and read a page with too much content shoved up in a tiny space.
In Summary
“Above the fold” has its place in web design, but it’s not the Holy Grail. This is particularly true for sub-pages of your website.
Websites that are designed with “above the fold” as their mantra are not only uncomfortable for the user, they discourage scrolling (so things that fall below the scroll are actually more likely to be missed).
Browsing habits are changing. More and more people are visiting websites from a mobile device. (Check your Google Analytics to see the percentages for your website visitors, and whether mobile visitors stick around or leave quickly). As this trend continues, “above the fold” layouts become more outdated. What’s more, “the fold” changes position depending on the type of device a site is viewed from.
More important than the fold is having a web designer who is forward thinking — and who knows that statistics are often misleading.
You can see how your pages look above the fold at http://whereisthefold.com/