As a blog and web design professional, I often tell people that what appears “above the fold” (the info you see before having to scroll down or click for more) is still pretty important. Why?
Because it’s what people see when they first come to your site and it’s essentially the information that people use & process to decide whether it’s worth their time checking out more of your site or not.
Melissa argues that this is not necessarily true any more by ‘Blasting the myth of the fold‘. Unfortunately, I couldn’t disagree more. How can I say this?
From several hours of sitting in an internet cafe next to several (yes, more than one) people who didn’t even seem to know how to scroll down a web page. Seriously…these people sat there with a mouse with a scroll wheel and had to ask the very friendly (and patient) guys at CCB (our local internet cafe here in Muizenberg), how they can get to the ‘top’ (technically, it’s the bottom of course!!) of the page.
After a couple of simple demos on how to use the mouse scroll wheel to scroll down the page (below the fold), they got to read the rest.
Living and interacting in a tech savvy world as many of us blog readers/subscribers and internet savvy people do, it’s easy to forget that there are still a huge number of people who have extremely basic computer skills. Many of these may well be your prospects and target market….
Reason enough for me to still recommend to Project Woodward clients that the content above the fold is vital.
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Lea, you’ve hit the nail right on the head with this one – there are clearly so many people who assume that the whole world is tech savvy.
Another good example of this is how some wish to change the name “podcast” – all very well, but do they realise that the general public is just getting the idea NOW? If you think it is a difficult word to explain in English – try doing it in another language.
Yep – this post demonstrates quite clearly that Project Woodward is working in the real world – more power to you…
Thanks Chris – glad you agree. What exactly do people want to change the name of podcast to now??
I can just imagine how hard it might be to try and explain it all in Spanish!!
Downloadable media – which I think is fine conceptually. My argument (which I have expressed around the net) is that the problem is that somebody high up in the “podosphere” decided on one name which the rest of us have had to spend these years explaining, and now another term is more convenient for the “leaders”, the rest of us have to change.
All this tech is new, but it is essential to keep your feet on the terra(byte)
Ah yes – I have seen more references to ‘downloadable media’ than I have to ‘podcasts’ recently but didn’t take much notice of it.
Many people in my network still (fortunately) refer to podcasts altho come to think of it, I often use the term ‘downloadable media’ myself to newbies and the non techys – mostly because it says what it does on the tin!
I agree it’s frustrating in the tech world that terms are adopted and discarded by those up high – which the rest of us then have to explain to ourselves, bewildered clients and newbies who can’t keep up.
I wonder if it’s a sign of the lack of branding experience/knowledge that many techys suffer from…
Downloadable media is actually a better name than podcast, as you say – techys often seem to live in another space, that’s an interesting point you make