Hello everyone! Now im working on a website and i need to know the average user scrolling distance in either pixels, inches, pages, any measurement really. To clarify i want to know how far the average user is wishing to scroll down a page to see the contents. Im not talking paragraphs f text like stories etceter because most people will scroll till the end, say if you were looking for something on a page, how far would you, or the average user, be willing to scroll before getting bored and giving up? If anyone can post a link to some sort of web research site where i can get free stats like this i would be grateful!

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When it gets to be too large, you'll know, because then the scrollbar gets quite small and even you yourself will think it's rediculous.
http://timecube.com/ and http://ytmnd.com/sites/profile/667861
At the length of these pages the reader will stop probably halfway before giving up.

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Well, what are you going to use this for? if its a forum or search engine, I would make it adjustable like many forums and google has, that way the user defines how many is too much. If that is too much, I'd probably scroll about 1-2 pages (I have widescreen, 2 pages is smaller for me than 2 pages on a regular screen).

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Usally users dont scroll they want to see there content as soon as the page is up, i would say thou

1280x728 thats the screen resolution of todays typical mointor... hope you get some good info...

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cwconline makes a good point.

The most important information should be "above the fold", to coin a newspaper expression. That means that the most interesting and attractive information on your page should be readily available and visible near the top and towards the left side if your width is wider than the user's monitor. Most navbars are in this preferred location, but not always.

As to the 'typical' size, the w3schools site keeps stats of their visitors and the results are available here. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp In 2002, approximately 50% of monitors were 800 x 600. As of January 2007, 1024 x 800 is the typical size. I design for the 1024 x 800 crowd, so that 'most' users (app 75%) see the entire width, leaving 25% to scroll sideways. I have never received a complaint. Also, I use Fireox Web Developer's extension to change the browser window and check in the smaller sizes to confirm that the page behave acceptably at smaller resolutions.

 

 

 

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Usually when websites are designed they are done in 800 x 600px (800 wide by 600 long) and 1024 x 768px (1024 wide x 768 long)

If your designing a website i suggest you do it in 800x600 it will be the easiest option

Hope that helped

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I stumbled on a web survey of the common screen resolutions and im happy that i can choose a size that will fit most internet user's screens. What im really interested in is how far the user might scroll before they get bored, im thinking it wont be more then a couple of pages. the content wont be continuous text, more like an assortment of small images.

Knowing this info will help me decide on page lengths as one page length is not enough but i dont want to get too big as i know users will get bored very easily!

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Well I would say depending on the content at hand especially if your using a comment system which you expect a lot of people to reply to. But as for resolution Rob and and haslip are correct that you want to design in those resolutions; however, depending if you use a fixed or liquid layout would determine which resolution you want to program for. If you want a fixed layout you want to design at 800x600 and if you plan to use a liquid layout you can either code in 800x600 or 1024x768.

As for the topic at hand if you plan to have a website that does reviews or tutorials that are several pages long then setting up pagination to help break down the content. You could do the same for using a comments script so if you expect hundreds or in today's millions of people to respond breaking down the comments will help keep the scrolling down for a minimum. So if you have something that Tetraca posted then you start breaking down the site, of course one of those sites has a lot of spam comments that should be deleted; nonetheless, if your scroll bar looks like that when presenting content then you lose visitors since it it doesn't give them a change to "blink" and give them a chance to interpret the information that is presented to them.

Remember your building a website for the user not for yourself.

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Well i personally hate scrolling and don't usually read anything on a web page unless it intrests me so i advice you not to make a long page with so much text but it does help with SEO.

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Humm... i think then that a scroll of about 2-3 pages would be acceptable to most users?

I would say thats about the distance that i would scroll befre going away from the site

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