

Life Below 600 Pixels - fryed7
http://www.iampaddy.com/lifebelow600/

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petercooper
Generally good advice, but the idea that the majority of a page's visitors
don't look below the fold isn't entirely fallacious, as Jakob Neilsen reported
in 2010: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html>

I suspect the percentage of people scrolling down the page is continuing to
increase, but even if it's not, I don't think it's that important. The
majority of people visiting a typical Web page don't "convert" anyway (that
is, they don't do something that the page is designed to encourage). The key
is to give a good experience to those who do want to engage and providing
content below the fold is a legitimate way of doing that (and, as Neilsen
notes, is better than 'paging.')

All that said, saying "You're still reading. Pretty crazy, huh?" doesn't prove
a point though. Clearly the percentage of people who scrolled and are
reading.. _are_ reading. But I might just be in that 20%. Without hooking up
some JavaScript to your page, we can't get a figure on what percentage that is
;-)

~~~
repsilat
On any other article the massive header would be obnoxious, too. As a human
who uses the web I think (naïvely) that it'd be nice if I could start reading
the content of a page from the top, and I certainly shouldn't have to scroll
down a page to start.

I understand that the author is trying to prove a point, but before I knew
that I thought, "God, what a ridiculous page layout," and I _was_ closer to
closing the page because of it. I guess the moral of the story is that you can
shove your relevant content "below the fold" if you like, but only if you're
making a joke.

As for the 37Signals example, I think the article is exactly wrong on that
one. The first section of that site has obviously been designed with specific
intent - they're giving you descriptions of their products, and making the
case for using them. It's all sales. They're not "telling a story", or waiting
for you to reach the end of the page so they can tell you where to go next,
those links at the bottom of the page are just there for people who forgot to
click the links at the top of the page.

I'll agree that most of the "content" is below the fold, but that information
is down there quite deliberately. Users aren't _expected_ to scroll down,
they're just catered to if they're not satisfied with the content at the top.
Again, the content above the fold has been chosen with specific intentions -
everything else is secondary to it. If anything, this example works against
the point of TFA.

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adrianhoward
Ironically - I closed the window on this one before scrolling. It was the
comments here that cued me to go back and scroll :-)

In my experience (from doing a bunch of user testing on this sort of stuff)
people scroll if 1) they have a visual cue that scrolling is needed/possible;
2) people are motivated enough by their need to carry on exploring.

In my case I saw this <http://cl.ly/2S1B2P3X1Z1F0x3m0t0N> \- with no obvious
cue for scrolling... spent a couple of seconds clicking random things. Left
going "meh, wonder if the comments will explain this".

The problem of people just not understanding that scrolling was something that
you did (yes - they really did exist ;-) has pretty much gone - thank
goodness. And "the fold" isn't a thing any more because the proliferation of
devices, display sizes and reading contexts means that there are _dozens_ of
different folds.

That doesn't mean you don't need to pay attention to them any more though -
which is something I'm afraid a casual reader will get from this post. As
others have already pointed out the 37signals page is very definitely _not_
giving the fold the finger. It has _many_ calls to action - both above and
below the folds.... and they've paid attention to those folds (look how the
biggest paying apps basecamp & highrise are above the lowest rez fold, look
how the design breaks in the middle of paragraphs/images on the most common
fold lengths to make it obvious to the user that there is more context if they
scroll, etc.)

Yes - the idea of jamming everything up above the fold is dumb. It's the
designers job to explain that this is an over simplistic reading of a design
heuristic.

The advice to "Think about the rules before obeying them!" is good though :-)

~~~
bagacrap
there's only "no obvious cue for scrolling" because apple recently decided to
hide your scrollbar, which I happen to think is a terrible decision.

~~~
adrianhoward
The scrollbars aren't the most obvious cue you can have ;-)

The scrollbars are only one of many cues. I've observed _lots_ of usability
tests where there are scrollbars and people don't scroll because there is a
natural break in the content. When the reader is unaware of the nature of the
content they finish when they believe the content ends.

If you look at the 37signals page in contrast
<http://cl.ly/2W0w2M0w0m3z0d1D1G3r> the entire bottom part of the screen is
obvious "broken" by the bottom screen edge. Both the page ending in the middle
of the text and the grey boxes that surround each option that are not
completed are cues that there is more content. To even a very casual reader
it's obvious that there stuff below that you can scroll to see - with or
without scrollbars.

------
Rygu
I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It's not about scrolling down. It's not
about whether content below 600px is read at all. The purpose of the fold is
to capture visitors' attention immediately, and to create a desire at the
instant that they land on your page.

The 37signals' landing page is used to prove his point and the author is even
claiming that they're "giving the fold the finger". Although it seems to me
that 37signals is actually making great use of the fold to capture attention
using big headings, high contrast, lots of colors and graphics. They've even
thrown in a box that says "more _praise_ from the press" so the visitors could
feel challenged to find out for themselves. Then below 600 pixels, it's just a
boring sales page. (The footer is really just a link section.)

So yes, people have learned how to scroll on web pages. But no, don't give up
on making the fold awesome and informative.

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balloot
I don't get it. Why would someone have a website that was just some penguins
on an iceberg?

~~~
AndrewDucker
Because Penguins are awesome.

~~~
chris_wot
As are iceburgs.

~~~
jrockway
Those aboard the Titanic would disagree.

~~~
chris_wot
Because the Titanic was sunk by a not-awesome iceberg?

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dasil003
The problem of the client dictating to the designer dozens of things that need
to be above the fold is a strawman. That is a client who is not giving the
designer latitude to do their job.

The truth is that the fold is real, and it is important. What are you putting
front and center in your design? It's a real question. Of course users scroll,
but the top of the page does convey a first impression, and is thus more
valuable real estate then the rest. Does that mean make every page a full-
screen slide? Of course not, be sensible.

~~~
wmeredith
>>The problem of the client dictating to the designer dozens of things that
need to be above the fold is a strawman.

As a Developer, Online Marketing Manager and Digital Strategist at a web
development agency for the last 5 years, I'd just like to say, AHHAHAHAHAHA...
Oh jeez. Oh hell, that was a GOOD one.

------
tawm
Discussion from 5 months ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3242670>

And 2 years ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1095003>

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andys627
I bet at least 90% of 37signals click are "above the fold".

I've been experimenting with giving user a bit of control before moving on by
making "slides", they get a slide which is nothing but 970x600px, then they
have to click something to move on to the next slide. Its all loaded in the
dom so no refreshing. The site is more like a presentation than a big flyer.

Also, rethinking the refresh - instead of refreshing I slide to the next page
and show something in between. It can be flashy design
(<http://jsfiddle.net/Rd92C/>), or some info
(<http://jsfiddle.net/andys627/xRTfL/1/>). Its a great place to show have
undivided attention!

~~~
minikomi
aka splash pages?

~~~
andys627
I'm talking about getting away from putting stuff in its own document that is
reloaded, and then using the transition time for content. More like splash
transitions that were otherwise used for reloading stuff (blank screens, the
same screen, half the new screen)

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dlevine
Unless you are using Lion, where the scrollbar is hidden, and you can't
actually see whether there is any more content below the fold...

------
liamondrop
Rather than really proving any point, this and his other articles are great
examples of how to use semi-incendiary link bait to snatch some buzz and,
perhaps, a client or 2.

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Midonsmyr
This is pointless countering to an idea that is established for a reason,
people reading above the fold only is largely true. But like the page says,
don't take other people's word for it. But just because you shouldn't believe
them that doesn't mean you should believe the opposite. If you really care
about then TEST IT YOURSELF.

Caps lock applied for the importance of the point. Like many other comments
are saying there is a wealth of evidence that points towards nearly 90% of
users tending to only pay attention to what is above the fold, the other 10%,
may read more. That 10% is important, hell they're your most engaged audience.
But your design needs to only cater for the 10% and focus on the 90%.

So test your site, use a tool like <http://www.crazyegg.com/> and look at
scrolling heatmaps of your site. See if a page that draws users down is really
working or not. Don't take somebody else's word for anything, just use
studies, design cliches and common sense as a foundation for your own result
based investigation into what layout serves your entire visitor-base best.

------
AaronBBrown
Have they actually done usability studies on this or are they just making
stuff up?

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ebf
It seems to me the 37 signals website puts the most important bits above the
fold.

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ThomPete
The thing about the fold is not whether you can have content below the fold
but about what content you have above the fold and what should be below.

It's really that simple.

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mullingitover
With the success of the iPad, and its growth trajectory, I'm curious if
designers will adjust to a design that favors the broadsheet format. As a
person who does a lot of reading on the web, I find broadsheet to be vastly
superior. Landscape is only really good for watching movies. For work I'd
prefer something in the middle, and generally I wish all future computers were
able to switch between portrait and landscape on the fly.

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pudakai
Very clever presentation that shows by doing (how many people could resist the
temptation to scroll down on that page). Thanks for posting this!

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8ig8
For those looking for some data for the debate, Waypoint is a jQuery plugin
that can help track where on a page a user scrolls to...

<http://imakewebthings.com/jquery-waypoints/scroll-analytics/>

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acoyfellow
I just graduated! My graphic design professors would have loved to see this.
Lovely little piece.

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drumdance
The title of this post was a hint that primed me to look below the fold.

------
T_S_
Hey! Can somebody translate this all to mobile for me?

~~~
swedenborg
sure can try => use clear big navigation ...

