Graphic + Web Design

Above the Scroll

October 3, 2008 As a child one of my first jobs was a paperboy. I remember my mentor, who I think was 12 years old at the time, explaining the ins and outs of the newspaper biz to me. One of his lessons was to make sure the deliveries left on the doorstep were "above the fold". He explained that "above the fold" refers to the location of an important news story on the upper half of the front page.

Fast forward 20 years. As a web designer now, one of the comments I often hear is: "Can we move all of the content "above the fold?" Usually, I will try to educate my customers about using the term "above the scroll" instead of the antiquated "above the fold". In web design, "above the scroll" refers to the location of an item near the top of a web page, so it can be viewed in a browser without scrolling down.

As a web designer, if you want to keep all of the content "above the scroll" on the page so that the viewable screen size contains all of your content, your maximum height for the website should not be greater than 768 pixels or 48em. If you are designing a website and you size it larger than what the current market share is listed, some people who may view your site may have to scroll. 

In August, the screen resolution market share was listed as follows:

    • 1024px X 768px: 40%

    • 1280px X 800px: 18%

    • 1280px X 1024px: 13%

    • 1440px X 900px: 7%

    • 800px X 600px: 5%

    • Other: 17%

The market share means that 40% of the computer screens on the market are currently 1024 pixels x 768 pixels. So if you are designing a website and you size it larger than 1024 pixels x 768 pixels, 40% of the people who may view your site may have to scroll down to see all of the content.

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