Focus on above the fold design? Maybe not...

[QuirkyJessi]

The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing | cxpartners

"Above the fold" is an old journalistic idea that you have to grab people's attention on the front page 'above the fold' because they probably won't flip the paper over otherwise or open it up. The same idea applies to websites in that you have to catch their attention with the top of the page or may not scroll down to see the rest.

The above link discusses this as a myth and it's a pretty interesting read (with lots of pictures/graphs/examples for you visual people).

[QuirkyJessi]

Lol! Check this one out. Here's the humor take on it.

Life Below 600px | I Am Paddy

[Jessemn]

We see that people are more than comfortable scrolling long, long pages to find what they are looking for

I've bolded a piece of the quote I think is important. To find what they are looking for. I take that back, a piece I think is HUGELY important.

If a person is actively looking for something they know exists, then the fold doesn't come into play. When I'm searching on Google and it brings me to a long blog post, I have no trouble sifting through it or ctrl+f-ing to find what I'm looking for. The same goes for when I'm browsing BBC news, CBC news, or even Reddit. It all stems from the idea that I know there's worthwhile content - they're trusted sources.

However, it's a completely different ballgame when I'm just wandering bored around the web looking for something new. A blog needs to grab my attention quickly and show me what it has to offer.

A comment on the "Life Below 600px" blogpost sums up my opinion quite well:

It's not that your important information shouldn't be at the top, it's that your entire website(this is going to be taken literally by some) shouldn't be pushed "above the fold".

With that said, I really enjoyed the idea that "Less content above the fold may encourage more exploration below the fold". I've never considered it in that way. But again, I still believe it would only encourage more exploration for trusted websites.

Very interesting idea and definitely pushing accepted beliefs (which I enjoy).

[QuirkyJessi]

On that last bit, sometimes the "less is more" idea 'does' encourage you to go below the fold, but I've been on sites where their entire banner took up the top portion and because 'that' didn't even catch my attention much, I didn't have much reason to keep looking. Just keep in mind that there should still be 'something' above the fold to encourage people to keep looking.

[Kezz]

When I click onto a random new site I often glance at the screen and then scroll down before I read anything, if I don't see anything interesting at the bottom I usually don't bother reading past the first few lines.