Has “Above the Fold” Gone the Way of Phone Books?

Close your eyes. Think back to the time of simple web pages. A time before responsive design, and everyone had their mobile phones practically glued to the palms of their hands.

Before people scrolled down pages, if AOL would even allow it, web analytics showed us that people were less likely to engage with content below the “fold” of standard desktop devices. Because of this, designers would recommend that important content and calls to action all be placed “above the fold.” Now, the phrases “above the fold” and “below the fold” are as foreign to the digital world as the phrases “VHS tape” and “landline” are to my children.

“Above the fold” is a term used in digital design that refers to the content displayed on the upper half of the website, visible before you scroll down the page. Its origins are from what you could see on the front page of print newspapers– even when the paper was folded in half.

Audience eyes will run down a website on all screen resolutions as long as there is a good design flow. Below are a few key points to consider, as well as a few recommendations for where designers should focus their efforts in the future.

Function Over Fashion

Even more important than the way a site looks is the way it performs. Sites with too high a load speed will never be seen in the SERPs, and will face even lower rankings by social media platforms like Facebook. Designers should partner with front-end developers to make sure that as many scripts as possible are bundled to improve site speed. Take the time to make your web pages Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) certified by Google.

Bigger Screen Resolutions

Not only should you be designing sites from a mobile-first approach as they work their way to standard desktop dimensions, but you also should be focusing on how the designs look on much bigger screens. It’s important that when audiences are looking at the site on a huge monitor—in a boardroom, for example—that there isn’t too much forced border on the left and right side of the screen, and that the font size is big enough for people to read at the far side of the table.

The Use of Iconography

Audiences don’t like the thrill of the hunt as much as they used to. Because of this, designers should focus on being as clear as possible about what audiences will find when clicking on digital elements. Icons should clearly relay that clicking here leads to a video, an article, an infographic, a slideshow or gallery, etc. We have also seen some strong metrics indicating that displaying estimations of how many minutes it’ll take to read an article has increased click-through rate.

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It’s a big bad world, and right now there’s more content on the web than the search engines will ever be able to crawl. So, relax about the fold and focus on fast sites that serve strong content experiences. I’m not saying to throw years of experience and best practices to the wind, but you shouldn’t worry that placing content lower on the page will do harm to your metrics. Have confidence. Serve comfortable amounts of whitespace and let the design compel your audiences to scroll and migrate throughout your site.