On any other article the massive header would be obnoxious, too. As a human who uses the web I think (naïvely) that it'd be nice if I could start reading the co

On any other article the massive header would be obnoxious, too. As a human who uses the web I think (naïvely) that it'd be nice if I could start reading the content of a page from the top, and I certainly shouldn't have to scroll down a page to start. I understand that the author is trying to prove a point, but before I knew that I thought, "God, what a ridiculous page layout," and I was closer to closing the page because of it. I guess the moral of the story is that you can shove your relevant content "below the fold" if you like, but only if you're making a joke. As for the 37Signals example, I think the article is exactly wrong on that one. The first section of that site has obviously been designed with specific intent - they're giving you descriptions of their products, and making the case for using them. It's all sales. They're not "telling a story", or waiting for you to reach the end of the page so they can tell you where to go next, those links at the bottom of the page are just there for people who forgot to click the links at the top of the page. I'll agree that most of the "content" is below the fold, but that information is down there quite deliberately. Users aren't expected to scroll down, they're just catered to if they're not satisfied with the content at the top. Again, the content above the fold has been chosen with specific intentions - everything else is secondary to it. If anything, this example works against the point of TFA.