Watching over 800 user test sessions, cxpartners report to have seen the page fold as a barrier to users on only 3 occations. In addition, eye tracking studies commonly show a strong hotspot over the scrollbar, indicating that people expect to have to scroll.

Cxpartners gives the following advise on how to deal with the fold:

- Don't cram everything above the fold. Use whitespace and imagery to encourage scrolling.

- Don't use stark, horizontal lines as they discourage scrolling

- Avoid the use of in-page scroll bars - the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page

Links:

• The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing 

Henrik Olsen - January 10, 2010

See also: Research (128)  Web page design (39)