Users spend 80% of their viewing time above the fold
Outdated Confidence: high
Source found and quoted correctly, but old enough that the market has changed.
- Commonly cited as
- "80% of attention is above the fold"
- True origin
- Nielsen Norman Group — Scrolling and Attention (eyetracking, 2010 and 2018)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2010
- Data as of
- 2010 eyetracking study; updated 2018
- Last checked
- What the source says
even as recently as 2010, our eyetracking studies showed that 80% of users' viewing time was spent above the fold. ... In our most recent study, users spent about 57% of their page-viewing time above the fold. 74% of the viewing time was spent in the first two screenfuls , up to 2160px.
- Method & sample
- NN/g eyetracking lab studies of desktop web pages (2010; repeated 2018).
- Drift between quote and source
- Age: the 2010 figure was replaced by 57% in NN/g's later study
- Scope: desktop pages in a lab
- Interest
- NN/g sells UX research and training.
Safe rephrasing
Nielsen Norman Group's eyetracking found 80% of viewing time above the fold in 2010 but about 57% in its later (2018) study, with 74% in the first two screenfuls.
Sources we opened
- NN/g — Scrolling and Attention (primary)
Machine-readable: /api/claims/80-percent-viewing-time-above-the-fold.json · Last checked 2026-10-16