Even though users are now accus­tomed to scrolling down web pages, we know that the fold still exists and is important–and how we can design to take advan­tage of it.

In light of this, Jakob Nielsen has con­ducted research to see what prompts users use to decide whether to scroll or not (the answer: the infor­ma­tion scent).

The impli­ca­tions are clear: the mate­r­ial that’s the most impor­tant for the users’ goals or your busi­ness goals should be above the fold. Users do look below the fold, but not nearly as much as they look above the fold.

Peo­ple will look very far down a page if (a) the lay­out encour­ages scan­ning, and (b) the ini­tially view­able infor­ma­tion makes them believe that it will be worth their time to scroll.

Finally, while plac­ing the most impor­tant stuff on top, don’t for­get to put a nice morsel at the very bot­tom.

via @zambonini