Why scrolling is the new click

In the beginning, users rarely scrolled vertically; but by , as long pages became common , most people learned to scroll. These fixations were from participants, who were part of our recent eyetracking study that involved thousands of sites from a wide range of sectors and industries. For this study, we focused our analysis on a broad range of user tasks that spanned a variety of pages and industries, including news, ecommerce, blogs, FAQs, and encyclopedic pages.

Our goal was not to analyze individual websites, but rather to characterize the general range of user behaviors.

Two changes happened between our studies: a bigger screens; and b new web-design trends, with possible adaptations on the side of the users. This analysis disregards the maximum page length — the result can be due to short page lengths or to people giving up after the first two screenfuls of content.

However, the pattern of a sharp decrease in attention following the fold remains the same in as in Understandably, not every page is the same length. If we look only at content above the fold — within the first screenful — the information towards the top of the screen received more attention than the information towards the bottom. Google gullibility remains as strong as when we identified this user behavior, 10 years ago. In other words, the closer a piece of information is to the top of the page, the higher the chance that it will be read.

Individual reading patterns confirm this finding. Many users engage in an F-pattern when they scan a page whose content is not well-structured — they tend to look more thoroughly at the text placed close to the top of the page the first few paragraphs of text , and then spend fewer and fewer fixations and time on information that appears low on the page.

Even with lists or information presented in a structured way, people use more eye gazes and thus reading time for the top of the page, as they need to understand how the page is organized.

Once they do so, they tend to focus very efficiently only on the information relevant to the task at hand, thus spending a lot fewer eye gazes and thus viewing time on the content placed farther from the top. Are you asking them to make a real decision and go someplace else? Product quality trumps evangelism. RSS Feed. Follow me on Twitter. Scrolling is easier than clicking A small observation with huge implications: scrolling is easier than clicking.

Bonus reading: thanks readers! Previous Product quality trumps evangelism. Scrolling is becoming an accepted practice but this doesn't mean we can discard information hierarchy and intuitive organized design with clear-cut clues to guide users through a website.

As with all effects and animation, scrolling effects should be used in moderation. They can require too much page load time and may not function smoothly across all browsers if over-designed. When done well scrolling can create an engaging user experience for your website and augment the narrative of your site. Keeping you social media buzzing takes dedication. Logging in to post several times a day, across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can feel like a full time job.

Building a social media presence takes time, and patience. That's where we come. Incorporation of video Something else you will start seeing more of within website designs, especially in hero areas, are videos.

An example of a website using a video in it's hero area is Coin. Videos are an effective way to communicate. Do you need an experienced front or back end web developer for work onsite? If you're looking for a developer with expertise in any of the following technologies please give us a call.

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