The question many web designers especially new comers tend to wonder relates to the fold. Does the fold really matter when designing a web page, more importantly the front page. In the past ad networks were the most concerned with the notion of a fold, but they haven't actually drawn a line as to how far down the page the “fold” line exists. Therefore, we dig deep to unveil just where the fold exists.

What is the fold?

The fold is a term that comes from the graphic design industry where it refers to the importance of content being on the upper half of the front page, especially when designing newspaper websites. The fold is used on the web to describe the area you see on a web page before you begin to scroll the page (think of it as a landing page before the user scrolls).

Less content may encourage more exploration below the fold

This simply means, try to avoid information clutter at the top of your website, the less information at the top may tempt the user to scroll the page. The image below shows a recent eye tracking on a design for Bristol Airport. The screens show two different design treatments for the hero slot (the large, prominent image area) on the homepage. What they concluded from this experiment was that actually having less above the fold encourages the user to explore below the fold.

Does the fold really matter?

Yes it does. Users still need a compelling reason to scroll down and see what the rest of the page has to offer. If the content above the fold does not capture user interest, chances are they'll find somewhere else, another site, to consume their time. The goal is to capture user attention as well as encourage users to scroll for more information.

It is still common to see a few sites with scrollbars for content only for example iFrames. However, the latest trend involves content breaking into several pages, see The Industry Standard. Although there is always a situation where multi-page content benefits user experience, the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page. iFrames and other elements with scroll bars in the page can break this convention and may lead to content not being seen.

Less is more, better use of whitespace and imagery encourages scrolling, but don't just stop at imagery and whitespace, consider the effects and changes if you were to implement typography. Let try and revolutionize web designing with less clutter.