Above The Fold

A good rule of thumb for web pages is to put the most important content "above the fold". But what does this mean?

The term "above the fold" comes from the newspaper industry. Visualise a stack of broadsheet newspapers at a news stand. Because the paper is folded, all you can see is the top half of the first page. This section became known as "above the fold".

Editors realised that in order to sell more papers they had to put the most interesting stories above the fold to attract people's attention.

In website terms "above the fold" refers to the top part of the web page that readers can see without scrolling. Most users will not scroll unless they find something of interest above the fold.