The "Fold" Still Matters

Browser size and user interface considerations still need to keep minimum viewable size in mind

People are scrolling these days. Even Jakob Nielsen retracted his guideline to avoid scrolling Web pages many years ago. But statistics still show that people spend 80% of their time above the fold.

But I'm noticing an even worse trend these days when it comes to the size and usability of interactive graphics and elements on pages. Sometimes the graphics are so large that a user can't even interact with the elements unless they're on a 23-in monitor. For instance, even something so simple as a photo gallery from the Geneva Auto show on Wired's Auto Blog requires scrolling (on my 15-inch, 1440x900 MacBook Pro) to see the thumbnail images. Then each time a new image loads, I need to scroll down again. Kind of annoying, and I'm not even on a 1024x768 screen.

As a designer who had to deal with 800x600 monitor resolutions (and smaller) back in the day, it's definitely tempting to look at scrolling statistics (always increasing), look at monitor-resolution statistics (always increasing) and keep blowing up the sizes of images, etc., but when you realize that 80% of the action is still above the fold.

And more importantly, make sure that at least the entire height of a graphic is no taller than the "fold" height, even if it's further down on the page. It's one thing to make people scroll a little, but it's another to make it impossible for them to see an entire image, map, chart, etc. at one time.

And here's to (hopefully soon) a new minimum monitor resolution size standard! As many as 85% of users are on a resolution higher than 1024x768 (though W3schools.com does trend a little less conservatively then other sources).