There is no ‘fold’ on the web
Steve Safran August 23rd, 2007
(This article originally appeared in the August 23 edition of the AR&D Media 2.0 Intel newsletter.)
One of the reasons local news websites are so cluttered is because of the “above the fold” mentality. It says all the important information needs to be right there, on your screen, as you visit the page. It’s assumed that anything “below the fold,” or where you need to scroll down to see it, is second-class real estate.
Count another superstition dead.
My biz partner Terry Heaton pointed out to me how TMZ.com handles the treatment of its content and advertising. TMZ, a celebrity gossip site, has ads up and down the length of its page. It also puts news in the right column of its page where you would traditionally see ads. This is a blog mentality - put information along the length of the page and don’t cram it all up top.
So how do we know that’s a good strategy?
Because the most clicked on link on TMZ.com is at the bottom of the page. It’s the link that says “NEXT PAGE.”
Milissa Tarquini is the director of user interface design and information architecture at AOL. (TMZ is an AOL site.) In her blog, Boxes and Arrows, Milissa has an entry called “Blasting the Myth of the Fold.” In it, she writes:
“The most clicked on item on the TMZ homepage is the link at the very bottom of the page that takes users to the next page. Note that the TMZ homepage is often over 15000 pixels long – which supports the ClickTale research that scrolling behavior is independent of screen height. Users are so engaged in the content of this site that they are following it down the page until they get to the “next page” link.”
Milissa also studied other AOL sites and makes the same conclusion. On the AOL Money & Finance page, she discovered that users found the information for quotes and personalized portfolios in strong numbers even when that information was placed “well beneath the 1024 x 768 fold.” (”The Fold” is different depending on the screen resolution of your computer and which browser you’re using.)
There is a challenge here - advertisers still believe the Myth of the Fold. It’s up to us to educate them and show them that a contextual ad placed next to a story is effective regardless of where it is on a page.
Milissa’s conclusion? Free up the top of your site! People do, in fact, scroll. There is plenty of room so let the site breathe. “If your content is compelling enough your users will read it to the end.”
17 Comments Add your own
1. Don Day | August 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
The problem with the TMZ example is that the “NEXT PAGE” link is fixed, while the rest of the links in the blog are transient. Above the fold real estate IS indeed more valuable than below the fold.
However, I agree with Steve that you can increase the value of links below the fold with good content and a clutter free (or clutter-light) interface.
2. discreet_chaos | August 24th, 2007 at 12:05 am
While I agree that not everything needs to be up top, I’d say instead that there should be distribution. For example on the new CNN homepage, there’s the focus stories on the top of the page and then there’s two screens of junk (for me) until the third screen, which is their stories divided by topic. I pretty much ignore the stuff between the top and the bottom and I really only go to the bottom because I know that’s where to find the subject-specific stuff.
The same can sort of be said for her examples. As Don pointed-out, TMZ’s “next page” is fixed, so it’s naturally going to get the largest clickcount and clouding the issue is that almost all of the stuff in between are full stories, so you don’t even have to click, anyway.
As for stock quotes and your customized portfolio — Quotes are big part of the reason that people visit finance pages and because AOL isn’t the first place most people would go for quotes, then most likely they are registered users and their portfolios are on file.
People will scroll, if they no there’s content, but that which you put up top is guaranteed to be seen.
3. discreet_chaos | August 24th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Whoops - That last line should’ve read;
People will scroll, if they know there will be content, but that which you put up top is guaranteed to be seen.
4. Brink | August 24th, 2007 at 3:43 am
Based on user input I read daily, there are a great many people out there who do not even REALIZE they can “scroll down” if what they want isn’t right on the screen when they arrive. Sounds ridiculous, but it is true. And I have no idea how–except by individual responses–to educate people about this.
5. Marc Rullo | August 24th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Don’t worry people, despite the bold claim this article tries to make, the ‘fold’ is alive and well on the web. For those of you who might have left it, temporarily misled by this article, welcome back to it. Seriously, the term ‘fold’ is borrowed from newspaper jargon for what amounts to be the top half of the front page of a folded newspaper. People known where to find things if they choose to look inside be it a magazine, book or website. But there will always be an initial visual presentation limited in dimension and scope. Saying sites don’t have a fold is like saying you don’t have a face. Retract the headline and save some of your own.
6. Steve Safran | August 24th, 2007 at 5:00 am
Marc: It’s not that there isn’t a “fold” as such, so much as there isn’t a need to put everything ABOVE it. That’s where the misconception is. Stations believe they need to cram everything up top, believing people won’t scroll.
7. Z | August 24th, 2007 at 5:58 am
I love ya, Steve, but I gotta go with Brink and Marc on this one. Whether there is or is not a physical fold, there’s certainly a perceptional one among many viewers.
8. Terry Heaton | August 24th, 2007 at 6:17 am
The question of “fold” is one of design and assumption. Everybody here is right, but it depends on how you view the purpose of a page in terms of delivering content.
In the traditional newspaper model, for example, above the fold applies, but it doesn’t in the tabloid model. But both of these suffer from the reality that everything else is within.
The earliest iterations of the web were all text-based, so we followed the newspaper model. The terms associated with most sites are all print: pages, columns, display ads, above-the-fold, etc. We even follow the print model of everything else being “inside” by creating links off the “front” page.
(We should be developing “channels” anyway)
Blog software, however, takes a different approach, one that assumes every story has equal weight based on the time it is posted. Truly, there is no fold with this type of content presentation, which is why TMZ.com ads deep in the right “column” have such value.
If you look at each of their entry pages, however, those ads don’t exist, because people only view the one entry.
In as much as this type of presentation is becoming a web standard, it’s important we consider how different it really is. The length of the home page of a blog is determined by the number of entries, and that is preset according to the tastes of the author.
Personally, I spend most of my time with RSS feeds, so I don’t give a crap how anybody’s home page is designed. But as Brink noted, most people are still browsing.
Finally, in a browsing world, the ad at the top of the page will always be the most expensive, which is a statement of the real estate when people first arrive on a page.
9. JoeMo | August 24th, 2007 at 6:34 am
there is no reason to go below “the fold” anyways so stop it!
10. Mr. Semantics | August 24th, 2007 at 6:53 am
I have always preferred “above the scroll”.
11. Mike | August 24th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Keep in mind that “the fold” is different for each viewer depending on their monitors. There’s a sizable area which could be above on some monitors but below on others.
12. el Guapo | August 24th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Let’s face it, the home pages of most news sites are god-awful ugly “Christmas Trees” adorned with ads and links to sponsored features.
When one of Google’s creators was asked why other sites like Yahoo did not mimic their successful minimalist design he correctly observed that each department on Yahoo had constituents within the company (department heads, sales execs) who would scream bloody murder if “their” link was removed from the home page.
And trust me, users ARE frustrated. I get calls from people every day who cannot navigate our site (or our competitors) and can’t find the content they are looking for through site searches.
13. JoeMo | August 24th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Yeah, but how many of your visitors are running 800×600 these days? At some point you have to cut loose those dial-up users as its all about percentages. Too many sites concern themselves with those that fall into the minority, the people on dial-up or small screen resolutions then you have that guy / girl who is running some obscure version of Linux with Lynx (text browser); sure he likes to make a lot of noise but is he / she going to affect your bottom line?
14. JoeMo | August 24th, 2007 at 10:54 am
LOL… funny thing this observation is coming from AOL… so finally a NORMAL observation after decades of terrible publishing. Truth is everyone working on the UX fields knows tht — an many other facts. Just look at Amazon people: people scroll if there is meaningful content below the fold, and if a web site would start adding good content and good layout down there, traffic will go, just as people move right down the page on amazon where all the useful info are. Cheers.
15. G | August 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Ditto el Guapo. How many departments are in your building? Multiply that number by two and that’s how many things you’ll be “seriously encouraged” to put above the fold.
I’d offer that many people selling for the Web and similar platforms still don’t fully understand the platforms or how people use them. Saying you want it “on the homepage” is quick and easy. Following that up by saying you want it “higher on the homepage” is just as easy.
16. Tom Planchet | August 27th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I can’t tell you how many times a week a department here ‘encourages’ or asks for a link to be put above the fold. Or, for that matter, how often someone will ask where their link is, then when shown it down the page, asks for it to go up.
Unfortunately, traffic usually jumps on a topic when it moves “up.”
I’ve tried training users to both scroll down and go inside, by keeping content in those spaces for lengths of time, but I’ve never had the guts to leave them alone in those spots long enough to ‘teach’ them.
17. Pixels & Fairydust | August 29th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
The funny thing is that as you read this comment, you had to scroll down to get here. Why? If there’s interesting content, people will follow it, no matter where it is. That’s the plain truth and if folks aren’t reading your content, then maybe it’s time to look at the quality, rather than the placement.
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