Re:The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing
by ubernostrum on Thursday October 08, 2009 @05:13AM
(#868651)
Well, this is really the problem. The fold really only becomes a huge factor when you're trying to win someone's attention in that snap "does this site have what I need" judgment; once the user's mind is made up that, yes, this is the right place, it becomes largely irrelevant.
But somewhere along the line, a useful guideline for getting people to stick around and explore a page or a site morphed into a hard rule of "never have anything at all below the fold, ever". Which is frankly stupid.
Re:The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing
by ams6110 on Thursday October 08, 2009 @01:14AM
(#868361)
They also didn't mention horizontal scrolling, which I personally cannot stand. Vertical scrolling is not nearly as objectionable, though in forms it's more of a bother than on pages where you are just reading.
If you're giving users a specific task to perform on a specific website in a controlled environment, then of course scrolling isn't going to deter them. The argument against scrolling is that if you're trying to attract users to your site---to pick your site over other potential sites---then scrolling will be a factor when people want to make a quick decision if your site is useful or not.