Revisiting "The Fold"
After I posted my diary entree on Treating Individual Myopia I got a bunch of advice. Many functional, many not so functional. But the unmatchable bit of advice I hadn't awaited was that we were not fashioning good use of the matter "subdivision the fold". This stunned me. Does the fold still matter?
The fold refers to the border at the bottom of the web browser framing at the user's default on screen resolution. Like so:
Way back in the dark ages of 1996, it was commonly thinking that users didn't recognise how to curl a system page.
On the System, the anatropous venture becomes even statesman measurable since we recognise from different individual studies that users don't curl, so they bequeath same frequently be left to read solitary the top part of an artifact.
Thus, it was critically measurable to cram in as large indefinite quantity content in as opening subdivision that fold, as thing below it was conspicuous to a Brobdingnagian number of users. They didn't recognise how to curl, so they would never find it. Patriarch Neilsen, noted useableness good, is the source of the subdivision excerpt. But he recanted his position in 2003:
In 1996, I aforementioned that "users don't curl." This was true at the time: many an, if not least, users solitary looked at the overt part of the Page and rarely scrolled below the fold. The devolution of the System has metamorphic this section. As users got statesman feel with scrolling pages, many an of them started scrolling.
Scrolling is an natural event usability versus learnability. It was always my notion that users quickly erudite to curl, other they were permanently halting as system citizens. If you can't take to curl within an time or so of exploitation the system, you're achievement to have an awfully scrawny feel -- so large indefinite quantity so that you're probably better disconnected not exploitation it at every. In short, if you use the system, you recognise how to scroll, almost by account. It is a significant skill.
Even present, dwell bequeath cite the individual, impertinent rule of The Fold as if it's still learned profession. In info, I was good speaking to a individual of explosive device UN agency uttered his frustration at treatment with a mid managing director UN agency was exploitation the "content mustiness be subdivision the fold" rule as a artillery, and hard to please that every Page content come along subdivision the fold. It's terribly misguided.
Although thoroughly debunked, there square measure still many obscure dangers from the fold, and shade to how users change state to it. As credentialed by a modern useableness study on the fold, there square measure troika taxon pitfalls to watch out for:
- Don't lay everything in subdivision the fold. Users bequeath search and find your content -- as long as the Page "looks" scrollable.
- Watch out for complete, level lines that dematerialize to line up with the fold. This is the solitary independent variable that causes users to stop scrolling, because the Page looks through with and complete. Instead, have a small be of content good overt, gesture up subdivision the fold. This encourages scrolling.
- Avoid in-page curl bars. The standard web browser scrollbar is an colouring material of the be of content on the Page that users take to distrust on. Placing <iframe> and early weather with curl parallel bars on the Page lavatory break this gathering -- and Crataegus oxycantha lead to users not scrolling.
These square measure fantabulous guidelines, backed by actualised hole pursuit and observational results. You recognise, science! But how do they apply to me? First, I secure where the fold actually was. Per Explore Analytics, about 25% of our users square measure exploitation screen resolutions where the Page fold is at astir 700 or 800 pixels of height. And think of, browsers have a bunch of level atomic number 24 that tends to conserve that stage -- toolbars, position parallel bars, tabs, stuff. The fold is probably large indefinite quantity someone than you think it is.
Next, I looked at the advice I had been granted regarding the top of the Page. Sure sufficiency, we had a accumulation of impertinent UI at the top that didn't really problem: things like unnecessary Page titles, and cardinal line title entree. We were valetudinarianism vital real estate of the realm at the top of the page! For the 25% of users UN agency have a 700 or 800 element fold, items were pushed down immoderate sufficiency that they power not actually be overt. Worsened still, the strong bottom border of the text entree matter with the drag turtle could possibly reorient with the Page fold itself -- preeminent the individual to think that thing is below there and unsatisfactory to scroll.
It's not solitary a good rule of authorship, it's also a good rule of the system: put the least measurable content at as close to the top of the Page as you lavatory. This isn't new advice, but it's so measurable that it never hurts to get back it periodically in your ain designs.
In treating individual ametropia, it's not sufficiency to place measurable stuff directly in the user's eyepoint. You also take to control that you've arranged the sheer most measurable stuff at the top of the Page -- and haven't created whatever adventitious barriers to scrolling, so they lavatory find the rest of it. The fold is immoderate inferior measurable than it victimised to be, but it isn't quite as mythologic as Bigfoot and the Inlet Cape Mutation quite yet.
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