Are you designing websites for the fold?
Although there may be some important elements to have at the head of the page versus the bottom, the general concept of “designing for the fold” has rapidly become antiqued.
Life, Below 600px
Life, Below 600px takes an intriguing look at this aged design trend and not only challenges it, but calls it “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
But, Life, Below 600px isn’t just blowing steam. They’ve used an excellent case example to exhibit their point – 37 signals website.
I encourage you to give Life, Below 600px a read. It may change or re-align your thinking about the age old fold.
After you read it, tell me what you think!
Struggled with almost every client I’ve had. It’s always interesting to be talking to someone about the fold, and as they are giving the argument that no one will see “what lies below”, I open my laptop (with a higher resolution), to show it not being an issue. A website is meant to be explored – deeply, in some cases. Nice case use with 37Signals.
Agreed. The dynamics are really changing, especially when you consider mobile devices.
If a client says that to me, I ask if they use Facebook (they normally do), then I ask if they scroll to read things (they normally do) – point made!
I guess this depends on the audience, and what you’re trying to accomplish with the site. For landing pages, it is crucial to have the opt-in “above the fold.” I work with this daily, and manage traffic in the hundreds of thousands of hits per day. Above the fold is still alive and well.
I think there’s two parts of this that are really important to point out:
1. The most important stuff still needs to be above the fold.
2. You need something that hints at or shows that there’s content below the fold to explore.