I am seeing a disturbing trend in web design blogs: the belief that the fold is an obsolete concept. While Paddy Donnelly creates a graphically compelling story line it is ultimately flawed. You cannot presume that you have compelling content; the vast majority of content isn’t inherently engaging.

I’m going to be blunt. If you believe that the fold doesn’t exist you are a lazy designer. Lazy in that you are not following up to see how your designs are used. Lazy in that you are not taking a multi-platform approach. Lazy in that you are putting personal aesthetics in front of function to save yourself time.

Here are some of the twitter responses from actual working designers in user experience, designers that are responsible for the function of sites they design and website analysts:

The arguments that many designers use is that good content overcomes the concept of visible content. I have no issue with that statement. I have witnessed in web analytic data that changing the content can affect performance indicators related to engagement. Here is the thing–good content can be a solution to for design flaws–good content is not a design element. Good design does not use content as a crutch.

Good web design has the following qualities:

1. Presents consistent experience
2. Offers presentation flexibility (allows either short or long copy)
3. Works within functional browser requirements

Don’t believe the hype from designers. Look at your data, consider your audience and consider your goal.

Design for a purpose. Analyze for a goal. Listen to your visitors.