
Life Below 600px - chaostheory
http://iampaddy.com/lifebelow600/
======
dpcan
Honest to God, this just happened:

I went to the site, tried clicking the penguin, then the iceberg, then the
article squares at the top. Saw something about how I can't spell.

I then came back to HN.

I had second thoughts. I returned to the site and THEN noticed I could scroll
down.

...

I get it, we're all so tech savvy, but I'm telling you, the pixels above the
fold are extremely important. If they don't MAKE you want to scroll down, many
people will not.

~~~
nudist
Interesting, anecdote, but user tests show that you are in the minority. About
80% of people immediately scroll down when they reach a new page with sparse
content at the top of the page.

~~~
idoh
What happens to the other 20%?

~~~
ghotli
We are still working out the best patterns for web browsing. The web is still
surprisingly young. That 20% will learn eventually. Make it easy on the eyes,
space it out, consider your use of typography, and avoid TL;DR. These concepts
seem like they will persist.

To use those design tenants we just need more space. If that means moving the
meat of the page below the fold and keeping a nice hook up at the top then I
believe that's the way future web design patterns will go.

~~~
jacobolus
_tenets_ :) (sorry, I just finished reading the OP’s other article,
<http://iampaddy.com/spell/> and couldn’t help myself)

------
adamhowell
I can't agree with the 37signals.com screenshot being described as "the user
shouldn’t feel too overwhlemed. Everything has a bit of space and isn’t
fighting for attention."

As I've been designing the marketing pages of my app I've drawn lots of
inspiration from lots of different sites. And everytime I bring up one of
theirs, I'm struck by how cramped and jam-packed full of extraneous
information they are now.

If you compare <http://basecamphq.com> to something like, say,
<http://checkoutapp.com/> or <http://sifterapp.com/> it just comes across as
too much.

~~~
rodyancy
I have a feeling that 37signals has tested that page extensively. It may be
that they convert better when the page designed that way.

I personally like the sparseness of www.checkoutapp.com, but that doesn't mean
that 37signals' page is "too cramped." The only way to know is to test.

Look at Amazon. They have been through so many iterations and have tested so
much and their pages are still too cramped for my taste. It probably make good
business sense for them to design them that way.

~~~
adamhowell
Yeah, I'm sure you're right, and that's a post of theirs I would really love
to see. Screenshots of several different versions of their homepages, from
cramped to sparse, and how they all converted.

~~~
nhebb
I remember several years ago when 37 Signals abruptly changed their web site,
The issue came up in their blog comments and was covered by Copyblogger here:
[http://www.copyblogger.com/the-37-signals-approach-to-
copywr...](http://www.copyblogger.com/the-37-signals-approach-to-copywriting/)

Bottom line: 37 Signals didn't do any testing. I know they've reported
headline testing results, so maybe they've changed their practices.

------
djehuty
Huh! 37Signals has all this other stuff that I never scrolled down to before.
Interesting.

~~~
joebasirico
Perhaps I'm missing the concept of "the fold" the author is trying to get
across, but I think 37Signals is a really good example of putting things
_above the fold. Looking at their site they even have a line at the fold
separating the two sections. I think they've done used the concept of "the
fold" really well, don't get me wrong, but it's absolutely there.

The black section at the bottom I always just assumed was a footer, not a call
to action, and honestly never read that before.

Ironically it seems to me the news sites seem to have done away with the
concept of the fold the best. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/>,
<http://www.nytimes.com/>, <http://seattletimes.com>

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I don't quite get what you mean in your last sentence - the fold is a
perception of the viewer not of the content creator. These 3 sites haven't
done away with the concept they've simply extended their handling in the paper
versions attacking the metaphor in the same way as the original problem. Just
like they put tag lines, teasers, introductions all with page numbers on
actual newspapers they put short snippets on their front pages on the web.

Care to elaborate?

------
patio11
[http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/no-
fold-h...](http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/no-fold-huh.png)

Caption for the PNG impaired: it is a heatmap pulled from my site, which shows
interaction above the fold being absurdly more likely to happen than
interaction below the fold, even for elements which are not actually
clickable. (You can't tell but more folks click the "New Card" button on my
screenshot, presumably expecting it to result in a "New Card", than click the
below the fold calls to action.)

Strictly speaking it would be more impressive if I created two designs, one
with an aesthetically pleasing design and the call to action below the fold
and one with the same design but the call to action above the fold, then A/B
tested them against each other. I'll do that when some talented designer pays
me for the damage it would do to my business.

Sorry guys, art warms my heart but math pays the bills.

~~~
paraschopra
Yup, you have more links above the fold than below the fold. How does it prove
below the fold links don't matter much?

------
moconnor
Why's a picture of the tip of an iceberg with some penguins on it at the top
of HN today?

------
sammcd
I see where he is going, but I think he used a terrible example of the 37
signals web page. He says they don't call you to action until the bottom of
the page. But their four products are clearly displayed "above the fold".

I was buying what he had to say until he used this example that clearly didn't
sell the point.

EDIT Also his design is amazing. Someone of less a caliber might not have
gotten me to read the article. I'm still going to be putting my "buy" button
"above the fold"

~~~
wizard_2
It's not bad design but I have to point out that he's following in Dustin
Curtis's footsteps quite closely. Each article is complete with its custom
design and an obvious amount of effort goes into the look of each one.

<http://dustincurtis.com/>

He calls it a "blogazine" format. Dustin is the first person I've seen do it,
but I'm happy to see it catch on.

~~~
mbrubeck
<http://jasonsantamaria.com/> started using this format slightly before
Dustin. I'm not saying anyone copied anyone else - just that it was probably
invented multiple places.

And of course, before blogs took over the web, a separate design for every
page was quite common. Look at JWZ's old "stories" pages for a particularly
horrible example. :)

<http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/toothbrush.html>

<http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/zombies.html>

<http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/license.html>

~~~
alabut
And Khoi Vinh started doing it before JSM in Sept 2007 with a group blog
called A Brief Message. It's been dead for about 2 years now but it was being
regularly maintained for a while with weekly updates and had interesting guest
authors that would also pair up with a different designer to craft the layout
of each article.

It was not only an interesting experiment, it actually created some really
cool thought-provoking writing, like these bits by Dan Saffer and Clay Shirky:

<http://abriefmessage.com/2007/11/01/saffer/>

<http://abriefmessage.com/2007/09/13/shirky/>

------
WalterGR
Here are a couple pages I found in my bookmarks that contain some data.

"Blasting the Myth of the Fold (2007)"
<http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of>

"The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing (2009)"
[http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/the_myth_of_the_page_fo...](http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/the_myth_of_the_page_fold_evidence_from_user_testing.htm)

------
gyardley
There's a good reason why most affiliate marketing landing pages, especially
for things like e-books, are eighteen bajillion pixels long. That's what's
been tested and found to work for that particular audience.

~~~
josefresco
I'm glad somebody brought this up as it's a trend amongst CPC/affiliate folks
that isn't going a way. I even tested the theory with one of my eccomerce
clients by stripping away the site nav and constructing a page that was very
long but told more of a 'story' with a call to action half-way down and in the
footer. Results so far have been inconclusive but so far I've theorized that
they are effective due to the audience, the product and the story.

I've also considered that what works for selling a $19.95 snake oil weightloss
pill may not work for your $19.95 widget.

------
vaksel
the whole point of being above the fold, is grab the user's attention in the
first few seconds.

The stuff below the fold, only gets read if a person is convinced by the stuff
above the fold to continue reading.

~~~
prawn
Bingo. You need to cater to two audiences - those with a passing interest
who'll gloss over big text and an image (often screenshots in the case of
start-ups) but hopefully remember what they've seen, and the more dedicated
who will get interested and read the long-format copy, researching before
purchase.

Ogilvy forever pushed this style of selling - here's an example:

<http://www.annoyingdesign.org/blog/2009/08/04/ux-print-ads/>

------
pmichaud
Cute article.

One nitpick--newspapers did not put the interesting parts above the folder in
order to entice people to read the rest. They put it there to entice impulse
buys, and they couldn't care less if it gets read.

Websites are fundamentally different in that respect because even if the point
is to sell ads, like with newspapers, we can actually track the ads on
websites so we can't get away with just going by how many people bought the
paper.

------
rmorrison
It's usually not appropriate to compare your site to 37signals.

I suspect that a lot of their visitors are already familiar with their
products or have seen 37signals' name in several places. Therefore, these
people are more inclined to read 37signals' long homepage prose, they've
already been sold on the idea that it's worth reading and learning more about.

Your website/brand probably isn't as well known. So you have a shorter window
to capture your user's attention. You need to control exactly what they read
and what message they hear. It has to be short and sweet, preferably only a
couple of sentences that hopefully new visitors will actually read. If they're
interested, provide ways for them to learn more, but they're not going to take
the time to parse and understand what you do if it takes more than 2 seconds.
You need to make sure that the gist of your message is conveyed in these 2
seconds.

------
jrockway
Everyone must have small monitors. On my average-sized LCD, I was able to see
a lot more than just the tip of the iceberg.

~~~
pyre
Also consider the possibility of Android-base phones, iPhones, (soon) iPads,
netbooks and (in my case) small laptops (my Thinkpad X41 is not a netbook, but
the screen resolution is 1024x768).

------
sh1mmer
That this audience and 37Signal's audience scroll doesn't mean that Paddy's
point is correct. The rule of thumb is really about making sure you look after
"regular" users.

I'd love to see the "below the fold" rule disproved, however the fact that
Google and Yahoo! search engines still deliver a default 10 results with
pagination suggests to me that most people don't scroll, still. When it comes
down to it Google and Yahoo! test more than anyone and there is real money on
the line there. They would increase the default number of results if it made
sense to do so now.

~~~
mbrubeck
In 1994, Jacob Nielsen did a study showing that 90% of users did not scroll to
find more content on web pages. But just three years later in 1997 he wrote:

 _"In retrospect, I believe this was due to people treating a set of Web
options like they would treat a dialog box... In more recent studies, we have
seen that most users scroll when they visit a long home page or a long
navigation screen. This change in behavior is probably due to users getting
more experience with scrolling Web pages."_ \-
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9712a.html>

"Most people don't scroll" was true 15 years ago. It's sad that it lives on as
an urban myth despite being invalid for most web pages today. (I do agree that
it helps to make key content visible without scrolling. I'm just pointing out
evidence that _most_ people _do_ scroll these days, and that the evidence has
changed since this was first studied.)

Google's pagination proves nothing. Even on a 1600x1200 display, you _do_ have
to scroll to see all the results on a typical Google search page. (Try out a
Google SERP on <http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/> and you'll find that over
90% of users need to scroll to read past the eighth result - _and there's no
way to get to the next page_ without scrolling.) Google has other reasons for
pagination, like reducing bandwidth, latency, and server-side CPU time.

~~~
isleyaardvark
Google has actually talked about testing results with more than 10 search
results:

"So, Marissa (Myer, Google VP) ran an experiment where Google increased the
number of search results to thirty. Traffic and revenue from Google searchers
in the experimental group dropped by 20%.

Ouch. Why? Why, when users had asked for this, did they seem to hate it?

After a bit of looking, Marissa explained that they found an uncontrolled
variable. The page with 10 results took .4 seconds to generate. The page with
30 results took .9 seconds."

[http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-
web-20....](http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20.html)

------
gnurant
Some of us choose to see the web the way we like it. For me I mostly abandon
all the author's style's and apply my own.

So the most important thing for me is a big fat h1 and ideally having the main
content first. So his post was very readable for me.

Each to there own, content is king; who cares what it looks like! I learnt a
precious lesson after my pc died and I replaced it for a few months with a
133mhz running lynx over dial up!

If you are a designer/author place a hidden 'jump to content' link if you have
extraneous fluff on the page please.

~~~
Sukotto

      'jump to content' link
    

These are also really important for visually-impaired users. Every page should
have one.

------
blehn
Note that even in the 37signals example, the main headline, introduction, and
calls to action (links to products) are clearly designed to be "above the
fold." The Basecamp page is the same way.

Where exactly the "fold" falls isn't very important, and readers will
certainly read down the page, but _only if you convince them with the content
at the top_. So the important lesson is, put your most important message at
the top--and make it concise--don't muddle it up with lower priority content.

------
d0m
I did click on #1.. saw the 19 secs video, came back on HN. Read the first
comments here.. than came back and scrolled.

------
agbell
We need to see eyetracking or scrolling heatmaps of this page and see how
users interact with it. Clicktale has some cool tools for doing this.

Studies I believe show that if things are on the edge of the fold and flowing
off the bottom, people will realize they can scroll.

------
philwelch
You know what's hilarious? This page plays up the idea that the entire page
should build up to some sort of awesome "prize" at the bottom, but if you go
to the bottom of his page, you get a comments section. Some prize.

------
ArturSoler
This is what I call "survivor bias"

------
duttonkj
Snooze. Paddy here has a good point, but his delivery is a cheap rip off of
Dustin Curtis's "custom design every entry" blog. And his design skills are
sub-par at best. Throwing paragraphs around with absolute positioning is in no
way groundbreaking.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You know, dcurtis didn't invent the idea of a unique design for each article.
Unless I'm mistaken, he refers to his site as his "blogazine", which kind of
implies that he took his inspiration from something else, doesn't it?

And for what it's worth, I thought the design was great. But even if it
wasn't, at least the guy is creating stuff. What have you created?

~~~
duttonkj
I've seen live journal entries evolve into weblogs, wordpress templates,
tumblers, and now apparently blogazines. One glance at iampaddy and i noticed
enough characteristics that made me immediately think of dcurtis. Dcurtis
probably took some inspiration from Jason Santa Maria (who started the current
blogazine craze) but made it his own distinct design. iampaddy has some work
to do before he can say that. Yes, the guy is creating stuff, but that doesn't
give him a free pass on criticism. Without criticism how will he improve? He
can go to his parents for blind encouragement.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Criticism is not inherently valuable. You offered nothing of substance, only
the opinion that his site was a "cheap rip-off" and that his design skills
were "sub-par at best".

 _"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again
and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high
achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."_

~Teddy Roosevelt

~~~
duttonkj
In retrospect, my choice of words was pretty harsh. A few people posted
similar observations on the thread without attacking. Thanks for pointing that
out and I will try to add some substance if/when I critique in the future.

