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The Myth of the Page Fold

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02-May-10 19:18

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matt

Gold

Posts: 3304

From: Southern Highlands, NSW, Australia

This is interesting:

"The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing"

http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/the_myth_of_the_page_fold_evidence_from_user_testing.htm

The thrust of the article is that, if your page is designed properly, users will always scroll down the page if necessary. Therefore, you don't need to worry about whether stuff is "above the fold" or "below the fold".

This is quite refreshing, since the traditional line of thought is that you have to cram everything important "above the fold" (i.e. in the top screenful of page content).

What's your approach when designing pages? Do you try to put all your important content above the fold, or do you not worry about it these days?

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

03-May-10 16:20

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mauco

Silver

Posts: 151

From: Africa

Very interesting article indeed. I'm one of those that generally doesn't concern myself whether content is above or below the fold. But I must confess that placing important stuff above the fold just makes things more convenient.

A lot of SEO are particularly fond of emphasising the importance of placing stuff above the fold but I believe if they read this article they might have a rethink.

I read through some other articles on the cxpartners website and I think these guys seem to know their stuff.

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http://www.mauconline.net

03-May-10 20:15

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cat

Gold

Posts: 454

From: Australia

Agreed mauco, very interesting article.

It basically seems to come down to the design - if you see something you like and it looks like there's more below, most people would scroll down to carry on reading.

If I had to choose between a site with long scrollable pages, and one with all content above the fold where you have to click to see the next page, I'd choose the scrollable one every time.

Cat

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http://web.soothed.com.au/
Web design for natural therapists

07-May-10 02:04

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matt

Gold

Posts: 3304

From: Southern Highlands, NSW, Australia

@mauco: Yes I agree, it's still a good idea to place your most important elements (logo, main nav, etc) above the fold. With everything else though, the reader will scroll if they're interested.

@cat: Absolutely! I much prefer the whole article on the one page. I suspect the reason why some sites split articles over multiple pages is to inflate pageviews so that they get more advertising revenue. I think this backfires in the long run though.