Explaining the need to avoid horizontal scroll

Question

I need help explaining to my boss why her design is poor on a client\'s website. She has no knowledge of the web, and it can be difficult as a web developer working with a

Answer 1

People read left to right, top to bottom (or right to left in some countries). Because of this they can read a lot more content before they need to start scrolling as they only have to scroll vertically.

If you introduce horizontal scrolling then the user has to potentially scroll at the end of each line rather than at the end of each page.

Answer 2

Two points I would make:

1. NO major website uses horizontal scroll. Not one. This means, regardless of what she considers "good" design, 100% of users will be confused and will probably never see the content off the right side of the screen.
2. Horizontal scroll is the print equivalent of a fold-out or "centerfold" style-page. Would you make every page in a magazine like this?

Answer 3

Ask her if she would want to open a brochure to only see that one of the folds was unnecessary as it merely has some header image spilling over into it (but no content).

XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX
XIMAGEX|XIMAGEX
XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX
       |
Some   | (but
content| this
here   | is 
       | blank)