Don’t fear the fold!
Many web professionals often hear from their clients that all website content should be visible to users on “standard desktop resolution” (whatever that is) without scrolling. This is known as “above the fold” in graphic design. They are usually hard to convince that this it not necessary because people who browse the web are familiar with scrolling.
Now we have evidence from user testing to support this:
Over the last 6 years we’ve watched over 800 user testing sessions between us and on only 3 occasions have we seen the page fold as a barrier to users getting to the content they want.
Three important design tips are given in the end of the article:
- Less is more – don’t be tempted to cram everything above the fold. Good use of whitespace and imagery encourages exploration.
- Stark, horizontal lines discourage scrolling - this doesn’t mean stop using horizontal full width elements. Have a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling.
- Avoid the use of in-page scroll bars - the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page. iFrames and other elements with scroll bars in the page can break this convention and may lead to content not being seen.
(via 456 Berea Street)
December 15th, 2009 in
ui design
