The Fold
Above‑the‑fold content is the instantly visible part of a webpage; it should convey the brand’s value, build trust, and prompt a clear action, while avoiding clutter, hidden CTAs, carousels, and neglect of below‑fold content.
In traditional print media, the area literally above the fold of a newspaper was reserved for the most important stories—those headlines were the only section of a paper guaranteed to be seen, and the papers one shot at grabbing a potential reader’s attention to generate enough interest to pick up the paper and buy it.
Once you grabbed the reader and got them to unfold the paper they’d see the content below-the-fold—still interesting, still important (just maybe not as important as that main headline). This content was the second most likely to be seen, with the interior pages being less likely to be read but often containing the continuation of front-page articles, as well regular and consistent sections of content—think weekly obituaries, sports scores, and TV listings—that people turn to with explicit intention.
When the world wide web started (remember, desktop only) the behaviors in which people thought of and interacted with a website aligned to the way they interacted with the then-dominant and familiar medium of newsprint.