“Above the fold” refers to the story printed at the top of the page. The term originates from the newspaper industry where the story on the front cover is the most important story. It is the most sought after spot because it is what readers see first.
The web design industry picked up the term and many professionals are still biased about how it works. In companies employees and teams look for prominent positions to place their contents, assuming that the content below the fold will be missed. I am not 100% influenced by the “above the fold” concept. There could be no clear fold line since monitors vary in sizes, tool bars use space and browsers may not necessarily be full screen.
However, there may be certain design squeezes that can make sure that viewers notice detailed areas. A perfect example is Google. They managed to increase Google Earth downloads because they altered the “Download” button upward by 100 pixels. It is a proven fact that Google likes to show the world their speed and accuracy, but now they have designed a way for other companies to follow their lead. Google has once again astonished us with their technical expertise coming up with an application called “Google Browser Tool” that will show website owners how the layout and design of their website influences user exposure.
The company created “Browser Size,” a new tool from Google Labs that indicates how many people see certain areas on your webpage. The illustration is calculated from browser height and width information gathered at Google.com. A given point in the browser, the tool will tell you what percentage of users can see it. For example, if an important button is in the 80% region it means that 20% of users have to scroll in order to see it. If you’re a web designer, Browser Size can be utilized to minimize scrolling and to highlight the essential parts of the page that are always important to your viewers. This is a good tool to make websites better and making the web improved for everyone.
Links:
Google Labs Browser Size tool
Google Blog announcement – Browser Size: a tool to see how others view your website.
The new tool aims to help website owners figure out how the layout and design of their website should be made in order to attract more followers. Isn’t that great? The tool may not be perfect, but it appears that it’s worth a try, and offers an easy to see way of figuring out if your content is seen by your users the way you intend it to be.
