The Fold Doesn't Matter
User Experience and Design, Wed 16th Dec 2009
"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."
Browser Size: a tool to see how others view your website
Google Blog, Wed 16th Dec 2009
"On the download page for Google Earth, the install rate increased by 10% when we moved the "Download" button 100 pixels upward."
It may be best to play safe and use Google's new BrowserSize tool
2 comments:
But what percentile to aim for? Some percentage of the user population will not see enough of your webpage due to well-out-of-date monitors, browsers etc. But these people may not be your market anyway. If you are focussed on internet commerce it may be reasonable to assume most users are relatively up-to-date with technology. It would be useful if the browsersize tool could be adjusted to include only browser versions from the last 'x' years or something like that.
Some cold hard data on this subject from Jakob Nielsen:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html
The summary of his findings is:
"The material that's the most important for the users' goals or your business goals should be above the fold.
...
People will look very far down a page if (a) the layout encourages scanning, and (b) the initially viewable information makes them believe that it will be worth their time to scroll.
Finally, while placing the most important stuff on top, don't forget to put a nice morsel at the very bottom."
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