The Nietz

We tend to get in some heated arguments around here about keeping things above the fold. Do you need to design a page with 600 pixels in mind, or do you ignore the fold?  Jakob Nielsen’s research indicates people don’t like to scroll, but there are some great sites which  use the fold to their advantage:

Paddy Donnelly thinks the fold is dead,

The newspaper’s goal is for you to actually read the newspaper, not just the front page. That should be your goal too. You want your visitors to explore your site/see your product or content. Don’t let the statistic scaremongers bully you into thinking the visitor will decide in 3 seconds whether to stay or leave your website. Trust me, having no space and information overload will most definitely make your visitors leave before the 3 seconds are up.

So, what’s the answer? Read onTake Mozilla’s Firefox page.  On the initial load you get some basic primary and secondary navigation, but mostly, you get a giant ad.

Taking up almost the entire page, but giving you a hit of something more.  So you scroll,

and learn more about Firefox.  And again, you get a hint of something more,

and more, and more until you reach the footer.  And if you have JavaScript turned off, it degrades gracefully, creating a staggered effect, encouraging you to scroll.

Each time you scroll, you learn a little bit more, and want to scroll a little more.

To fold or not to fold?

Just because these two pages are successful, does that mean we can start ignoring the fold?  Absolutely not.  These pages aren’t ignoring the fold, instead, they’ve focused on the fold and incorporated it into the design.