Jakob Nielsen: 80-20 rule applies to the page fold | Hacker News Reader

Jakob Nielsen: 80-20 rule applies to the page fold

useit.com

30 pointsadnam16 comments

Ya know... those images nearly imply the opposite of what was said. Users scroll to the content they want, and they focus on the things designed to catch their focus. The 80/20 + fold only seems to exist when websites have excessive focus on above-the-fold design. Saying it exists on sites aimed at above-the-fold design because they are designed to make it exist is a worthless argument.

* On Amazon, they did a quick-read of the top, and scrolled past a huge amount of info to get to the meat - the non-5-or-1 star review. Note that the one focused on is a 3-star, and the only non-5-or-1. Frequently, the 5 and 1 star reviews are fluff, so of course people skim past them to get to the more-perceived-as objective reviews.

* On JC Penny, were they just browsing, or looking to buy? I'd be willing to be that staring at sofas doesn't tickle many people's fancy unless they're seriously shopping. Sure, the fold applies to passive skimmers, but find someone determined to find something and I'd be willing to bet you'd see a significantly different eye-pattern. And note that the site isn't particularly heavy above-the-fold: JC Penny's site makes almost no money from people who aren't buying something, why should they worry about passive skimmers in their design? They're already past the front, attention-grabbing pages and into product lists, they're either buying or they're not.

* On the Zyflo CR site, note what content is at the top. Bulleted lists, images, bold, colorful text, etc. Eyecatching. And note how much they read further down the page, because it's all informative. The last bulleted list being skimmed is inconsequential once you realize what the list contains: things already said in the content above it. Other thin areas are excessively technical to most readers, so of course they weren't giving it as much information as the more generally applicable content.

The last site in particular strongly implies the opposite. Note how heavy above-the-fold it is, and how much was read further: http://www.zyflocr.com/zyflocr-healthcare.htm (yes, the article arguably "explains" this by stating that good AtF content encourages people to read further. It still contradicts the 80/20 theory, and seems to me that it implies FAR more that well-designed, easily-scanned information is more likely to be read.)

Those are good points, but just below the pictures he states an important result from his study:

"I picked examples where users scrolled more or less all the way down — often there's no viewing of the bottom because users don't scroll that far."

I don't know exactly how frequently "often" is, but I think those examples were just to show what happens when people actually do scroll down. He's suggesting that most of the time they don't.

I applaud Nielsen for trying to bring more data to the usability world, but man, the guy just doesn't bring any insight. All he does again and again over the decades is analyze a bunch of data which proves that well-established UI conventions work better on average than less common UI conventions.

However any designer or UI person worth their salt innately knows 95% of everything he has ever said, and applies it intuitively while balancing a dozen other issues which Nielsen pretends don't exist (branding, innovation, gameplay, etc). Nielsen's biggest achievement has been branding himself as a top-tier usability expert when in fact probably every high school in America has at least one aspiring designer with a better understanding of how people actually use computers.

Not really sure why you're getting downvoted. I agree to some extent. I've always had a love-hate thing for Mr. Nielsen. I've come to terms with him in the regards of treating his philosophies as baseline rules. Kind of like overriding laws in the real world we are recommended to abide by. But as in real life, rules are meant to be broken when it makes sense, such as not crossing a street when you have a don't walk sign. That would be a law. But when you don't see a car for miles around, it just doesn't make sense to abide this law. Jakob spells out these simple laws, but there will always be occasions where you say, well in this instance, it doesn't make sense, because of so-and-so. And that's where it will make sense to get creative and deviate.

I probably got downvoted because people thought the last part of my comment was unnecessary. If that's the case then I'm willing to take my lumps without regret. My experience as a web designer for 15 years and being thoroughly unimpressed with Nielsen during the entire tenure of useit.com certainly will have a tendency to come out a bit sideways from time to time.

I upvoted you as well.

The problem with Nielsen and his like is that they talk about averages but fragmented.

Everyone worth their salary know that it's a balance question not an average question and that looking at users instead of customers simply isn't useful.

How long can he keep beating that old horse.

Yes above the fold is where we keep our navigation, main messages etc. most designers know this and design for this, which might as well make his argument circular.

Users look because that is where we have taken extra care to design.

His conclusion really detracts important understanding from another area which is.

How much can you put above the fold without creating a paradox of choice situation which can be much more damaging.

Eye-tracking is fine but it only really tell a very tiny fraction of the story.

Walt Disney used to call this "visual weenies"

If you put a face looking at you in there you will also see users spend a disproportionate amount of time to look at the picture.

Whether it's circular I don't know but this kind of analysis is in my mind too simplistic.

The eye-tracking image for Amazon is intriguing - I wonder what it was that made so many people scroll right down to the bottom.

well reviews are definitely the highest value on Amazon, people (including me) look on Amazon's reviews even when they are buying products from somewhere else

It's the only non-5-or-1 star review (it's a 3).

He talks about that. Just scroll down to the text immediately after the images.

Yeah, I tend not to post articles I haven't already read. What I meant was, I wonder what was in that particular comment/article that resulted in a disproportionately large amount of user attention. I suspect it wasn't just the recency effect.

With no fixations on the number of stars or on the title of the review, the only two possibilities I can think of are the recency effect and a keyword the user was looking for. But if the user looked at but didn't fixate on stars/title (or other elements) we have only intuition to go on.

It's because it's the comment at the end of a long column of comments.

I am pretty sure if you turned it around so that the most recent comment was at the top it would still be the same.

It wasn't a lot of people. That was one eye tracking study from one user.

> 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.

If I behaved like that I'd never seen nice and interesting eye tracking diagrams in the middle of that post.

For that article what's above the fold is quite boring in comparison to the rest.

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