Our PIT leader (Hanan) recently shared an interesting article with me entitled, Life: Below 600px by an Irish web designer named Paddy Donnelly that really struck a chord. In the article, Donnelly conveys the article's point with a clever visual demonstration that flips the current trend of placing all of a site's premium content "above the fold" (an industry term for the space immediately viewable in a browser window, much like a newspaper that has been folded).

Reward Visitors for Scrolling

While he's not the first to cover the topic, Donnelly nonetheless incites his readers to buck the golden rule of cramming as much information above the fold as possible for a more mischievous, and admittedly sensical, approach where readers are encouraged to scroll the entire length of a page and are ultimately rewarded for doing so. This reward could be monetary (a special discount), the exchange of important information, or even just a strong call to action. Donnelly makes a lot of good points, many of which are being employed (either consciously or not) by websites that have begun focusing more attention on their footers. For instance, here at Productive I.T. we've placed a lot of useful support information, our e-newsletter signup form, and a fun team illustration that changes every month all at the footer of our site.