Do your users mind scrolling? Does all your content have to appear on one screen? It’s a long-running debate in web design, recently revived by blog chatter on the significance of the “page fold”. But is it relevant to your website in 2009?

What is the page fold?

The page fold is the point below which you need to scroll in order to see more of a page when it loads up. Imagine the physical fold in a newspaper when it’s still in the rack – that’s where the name comes from. Unlike a newspaper however, the fold on a web page will appear in different places because different people have different screen resolutions.

Should you be worried about content below the fold?

The fold is less of an issue than it was in the web’s nascency because web-literacy has increased. In a recent blog post, The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing, usability experts CX Partners show how people now use scrollbars to gauge the length of a page, and point to various popular websites to demonstrate how their designs give the fold less priority.

The  fold is still important however: to revisit the newspaper metaphor, this is normally the best place to put your headline (prioritised) content. So, instead of trying to cram everything in above the fold give your priority content room to breathe. You’ll get better click throughs because it will stand out more.

Is the fold affecting visitors to your site?

At Cubeworks we can do various things to help you determine the influence of the fold on visitors to your site. For example, we can track where users click on your page and correlate this with screen resolution data to determine whether there is an issue. We can then advise on design changes to alleviate the problem.

I hope that this article has been of use to you in understanding what the page fold is, and how it may affect your site. If you’ve got any questions then I’d love to hear from you in the comments.