The Importance of White Space in Web Design
White space, or, in other words, space on a page that is not taken up by text, images, or other forms of media, is often not seen as significant as other elements. However, is it really smart to underestimate the importance of white space? The short answer is no, by no means should you do this! Why? Let’s take a closer look at the importance of white space in web design to answer that question.
Avoiding clutter
The first reason behind the importance of white space in web design is that it allows you to avoid cluttering your site. Consider this: could you easily navigate a site if every bit of its space were filled by text and buttons? Probably not, right? It would be difficult to read what is on the page. And if you were trying to use the page as a landing page for an ad or a marketing campaign, it would be impossible to properly organize it due to the clutter that the absence of white space would cause. That is why using white space is also one of the web design principles that will improve your conversion rate. Of course, overusing white space is just as bad as not using it at all.
An effective page avoids clutter.
Improving readability
The following reason why white space is so important is that it improves readability. After all, the bunched-up text is nearly incomprehensible. Two facts compound this. First, some sites tend to use fonts that do not work well without white space at all. Trying to use them when there’s a lot of text on the page can be very harsh on the readers’ eyes. Then, there’s the fact that many people tend to look at things on their phones. Having no white space on a PC version of a site is rough. No white space on a mobile phone version of the site makes it downright impossible to read correctly. Both because of the bad formatting and the tightly packed text.
The importance of white space in web design is undoubted. Even the simplest of text pages require white space.
Directing attention
One of the best examples of the importance of white space in web design is how easily it can be used to direct attention. You can use it to center the page on a picture, title, or content. That allows you to signal what is the central message of that particular page. That is just how psychological principles of UX web design will enable you to focus on your visitors and how to ‘communicate’ with them. If you use this trick well, you can enhance the effects of marketing, the effectiveness of your landing pages, and even make your website more appealing.
A large part of web design draws attention to the correct part of the page.
A perfect way to separate sections
Another reason to use white space is that it allows you to organize your website neatly. Just think about a specific site you’d visit. All the different ‘sections’ of a page are separated with white space, aren’t they? The ‘feeling’ of a site changes entirely based on how white space is used to separate different parts of the page. A site that correctly uses the separation will be much more effective in what it tries to convey than a site that doesn’t. Besides, white space is essential to design a page properly. In the end, custom web design would, at the very least, be much more challenging to pull off without white space.
Crafting visual hierarchy
‘Visual hierarchy’ is, in simple terms, the organization of content that allows readers to process the information a page contains quickly. The first thing a typical reader does when opening up a page is scan through it. The importance of white space in web design shows here because it allows the reader to do this more easily. That also touches upon the importance of signaling we’ve covered since the reader can quickly and easily grasp the essence of the page and decide whether they want to invest more time into reading it. Of course, it’s more than just that. Proper white space naturally directs the eye and lets the reader have an easier time just scanning through.
Aesthetic effects
Of course, another reason white space is used is just that it looks nice! Think about it: what looks more appealing, a friendly page with good spacing, some nice font, and a good color scheme, or a page full of bunched-up text interrupted only by pictures? If the latter description is what matches your site better, then you can be sure it’s time to redesign your site! After all, you want your site to look as good as possible. That remains a fact whether running a store, a blog, or a business website.
Makes focusing easier
Of course, the importance of white space in web design comes down to making it much easier to focus on what’s on the page. Everything we’ve discussed so far builds up to that. Without white space, you really can’t properly organize a page. Or make any part of it stand out. Or even just read through it correctly. With it, you can offer your site’s visitors a much nicer and more comprehensive experience. One that allows them to appreciate the content of your site. And this would allow them to interact with your site for extended periods without getting overwhelmed, confused, or bored. If they have to deal with a site without white space, then it’s very likely that their engagement time would be much lower. In turn, this would also hurt the competitiveness of the site in question.
Final word
As you can see, the importance of white space in web design is by no means negligible. If anything, white space plays a huge role in web design. Without it, it would be practically impossible to come up with a nice, pleasing design that’s easy to navigate.
Picture Links:
https://unsplash.com/photos/v9FQR4tbIq8
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/web-design-user-interface-website-3411373
https://unsplash.com/photos/qC2n6RQU4Vw
https://unsplash.com/photos/0SYJS6nfR10
