This week we came across this tweet:

There is some lively debate about the actual existence of the pagefold on websites (see http://www.thereisnopagefold.com/).  The main arguments as far as I can tell, is that the pagefold does not apply to the web because, unlike the physical world where a newspaper fold applies to all readers, online users can view pages in a variety of screen resolutions which alter the placement of the fold and there is a scroll bar on most websites to find more content.

My take is a little more pragmatic;

When we observe users in labs, time and time again we see some people not using the scroll bar.  While good designs help to avoid this, it does happen.  As such we recommend to our clients that they present key information (not all content) above the page fold in common screen resolution formats (eg. 1024 by 768).

Whilst I agree that we should think about websites outside of the newspaper paradigm I do believe that talking about the fold encourages website owners to think about the placement of key information on the page to make it easier for users to undertake key activities.

What do you think?

Tags: pagefold, Usability

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 08:00 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.