Martin Spriggs

When the Bible was penned parchment scrolls were the medium used to capture the very words of God. The concept was pretty simple. A lengthy piece of parchment was stretched between two cylinders and the reader would unroll one end while rolling up the other. He or she could determine how much of the document they wanted to view at once with the only limitation being the length of their own wing span.

Today much of what we read is digital and on a computer screen…usually in a browser window. Those of you who are in charge of your church or school webpage must also deal with the “scrolling” issue. Your user doesn’t need a large wing span to view your documents/web pages, but they may have to scroll with the flick of a mouse scroll wheel or by clicking on the elevator bars on the right side of the browser window. So the question is, should you force your visitors to scroll to read your webpage? As the message we have to share is extremely important (the greatest story ever told), we want to make sure we don’t put barriers in the way of those to whom we want to speak.

For years professional web designers have suggested that a web page not scroll – sighting the age old “above the fold” argument employed by newspaper editors at every opportunity. The idea is that if you want somebody to read something the content needs to be above the first fold of a newspaper, or in the case of the web, content that appears on the first screen without forcing the user to scroll. So how important is that? Google even created a tool to emphasize it’s importance.

In my research however I ran across a website entitled www.thereisnopagefold.com, suggesting that it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about scrolling. Enough already. By now people get the scrolling thing. I’d have to agree. That’s not to say you shouldn’t put your most important information at the top, but don’t try to limit your content to one screen full at a time. The scrolling mechanisms of today are very good (scroll bars and buttons on mice, touch pads with scrolling built in via two finger swipes and side scrolls, etc). By the way, be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of the site