The Great Web Design Debate – The Fold

In web design, there is no other topic further debated and likely to cause a rift than that of “the fold”. Anytime this phrase is uttered within earshot of a group of designers, you are likely to hear a silence thick enough to slice with a knife settle on the room before an argument of amazing proportions breaks out. But what is “the fold” and what is it about this issue that has got designers so divided?

Basically, “the fold” is a concept that actually came out of print design (and, more specifically, from broadsheet newspaper design). As we all know, newspapers and magazines have a literal fold in the page – above this line is the masthead, a few major headlines and, probably, an eye-catching image of some kind; below this line lies minor stories, info graphics and byline or two. Of course, there is no literal fold in a screen, but this leads to the main argument held by many members of the web design industry – they feel that “the fold” simply does not exist in this field.

The argument held by a handful of other designers is that “the fold” does, in fact, exist – instead of it appearing as a literal fold, however, in web design content can be seen as sitting above “the fold” if it is visible the moment that the page loads (without the user having to scroll or click on anything). Everything else, which cannot be seen without this user interaction, is seen as sitting below “the fold”. And, as the internet can be accessed on a number of different devices with different screen sizes, websites might actually possess a few “folds”.

Regardless of whether you believe that “the fold” exists in web design or not, this belief is slowly becoming one that is harder and harder to ignore, especially because Google has fully embraced the concept and has even released an update to their algorithm that favours content about “the fold”. Even though this update will only affect about 0.7% of websites, it is important to keep in mind that this impact is still far greater than any other that has been made in the past.

Even so, the debate amongst the web designs industry of whether “the fold” is something that exists or not continues to rage on. It’s unlikely that anyone who already has an opinion on this belief will be likely to change it anytime soon, as designers are extremely opinionated people who, once they have made a decision about something, will stick to their guns until it has been proven to them otherwise. Perhaps this Google update will be the thing that smoothes all of the arguments over.