Over the years, web designers and developers have conjured up tons of ideas for keeping more of a website\u2019s content \u201cabove the fold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Expanding accordions, file folder-style tabs, fading and rotating animated sliders, and many more ingenious features were created to avoid having content fall below the edges of our clunky desktop monitors. All this work was done to prevent the need for one maligned behavior: scrolling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was accepted as common knowledge at the time that \u201cusers don\u2019t want to scroll.\u201d So we did whatever we could to jam every bit of potentially engaging content into the top portion of a single screen\u2019s height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the old days when desktop PCs were the norm, this crusade made sense. Users were less likely to scroll down a page if what was first presented on the screen didn\u2019t grab their attention. While this still holds true to a degree, the web traffic takeover by smartphone users \u2014 paired with the explosion of social media \u2014 meant users not only got used to scrolling vertical interface, they expected it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather than being an obstacle, scrolling quickly became the default behavior for users. Swiping on a screen to find what you\u2019re looking for is now second nature \u2014 while finding and tapping tabs, links, or buttons to show hidden content seems like a chore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t some cases where it makes sense to display a small amount of content and hiding the rest until it\u2019s called upon. For example, showing different messages for different audiences at the same stage of the user journey is a good idea. Similarly, displaying different info for separate versions of a product or service can avoid confusion and help drive conversions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when should you embrace scrolling vs. hiding non-essential information? As is often the case, it depends. When speaking to a specific targeted audience about a topic they are interested in, let everything show. Use standard layout elements like subheadings, bulleted lists, images, captions, and call-outs to break up the content and avoid the dreaded \u201cwall of text\u201d effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By contrast, if you have clearly delineated sections of information aimed at different audiences or discussing different services or products, try out some tabs, accordions, sliders, or other ways to focus the website visitor\u2019s attention where you want it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do content expanders have a place on modern websites when users tend to scroll by default?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-website-design"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/template.ogre.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}