Time to Say Goodbye to the Pagefold? Nope!

• Jonathan
• 18th Dec 2009
• Design

The number of people online has shot up in recent years and web users have become more savvy with it. In fact I can see where this conclusion about the page fold being irrelevant has come from. There have been lots of studies which show that users aren’t adverse to scrolling and have become used to doing it more.

At the same time lets not forget about the research that was done in the earlier days of the web (and is still going on). We know that web users are selfish and impatient and can make up their mind about whether they like a site or not in the blink of an eye.

In the blink of an eye all they’re going to see is content above the fold, and if none of that content looks like fulfilling their requirements then they may bounce off to somewhere else that does – after all, a list of (increasingly) relevant search results is just a back button away.

Then again maybe visitors have calmed down a bit and take their time on the web these days – but I doubt it.

Don’t worry, I do realise that ThereIsNoPageFold is an extreme case, and that most designers/developers/researchers advocating we obsess less about the fold don’t mean for us to forget it entirely but I sometimes think that simple (and quite clever) sites like this can lead to people making the wrong conclusions.

Another site I worry about is http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/ – a great idea, very nicely done but I’ve noticed a trend where people forget the word exactly and end up using it as an excuse to present a radically different experience to users of ‘less popular’ browsers (and by that I mean IE of course).

I’m not saying let’s stick disclaimers over all these fun sites – I think they’re awesome, but let’s at least consider that someone new to the world of making websites professionally may reflect on what they’ve seen and make a site which, while really great looking, completely fails at retaining users because when they land they can’t tell what’s going on.

Spread the word

If you like what you've read, help spread the word on Twitter, Digg, or any of your favourite social sites. Knowledge is power.

About the author

Jonathan Phillips is the founder and main author here on Division by Zero. A PHP developer by trade, Jonathan spends his days building and marketing websites and the rest of the time coming up with ideas for websites and businesses he hasn't got time to implement.