Many web designers still consider whitespace with negative space while the fact is whitespace is an important element of design for good reason. In fact, if used well and correctly, it can provide many advantages to your website and transform a design. What are the advantages of using whitespace? Read the points below.
- Increased Content Legibility
It is important to give a clear description to users about where they should be going and reasons to keep reading. For instance, by applying whitespace between paragraphs and around blocks of text and images, one can help people understand what they are reading and as a result, it can produce a better user experience.
- More Interaction
If you wish to increase visitors’ interaction, you can apply a good amount of whitespace that can prevent distractions that can slow the visitor down. Besides, a slight padding around objects will help draw attention to a specific area on your site. In fact, according to research conducted by Human Factors International, whitespace increases comprehension by almost 20%.
- Ability to Highlight Call to Actions (CTAs)
In order to highlight something, usually designers will make things bigger. However, you can also try other tricks, such as surrounding the item with whitespace which works effectively to highlight things.
- A Tidy Site Equals an Impressive Site
People say that first impression matters a lot and it’s true. You can apply great solid layouts, good color schemes to add the impression, but whitespace is important as it indicates finesse and ingenuity. Some people think that whitespace will make your website look bare and minimalistic. However, with the right usage, you can add a sense of elegance and superiority to your website.
- Creating Balance
Knowing how to apply the right amount of whitespace is absolute, since having too little whitespace causes confusion, disorganization and unreliability qualities, which you surely don’t want to associate with your site’s brand. Oppositely, using too much whitespace could highlight a lack of content and a lack of user guidance. Hence, balancing your whitespace design is the best solution for an easy accessibility and improved user experience.
- Acts as a Separator
Another benefit that is offered by whitespace is that it separates unrelated elements in a design. It can be used to separate images/graphics from each other and improve your overall visual layout. However, above all, whitespace helps to produce clearer communication or ideas and effective designs.
Things to Consider when Using Whitespace
After knowing the benefits that whitespace may provide you with, now you have to learn on how to apply it the best way. Sometimes, whitespace can often be crowded out of a design, so to prevent this thing from happening; you need to know how to resolve it. Take a look at some ways below:
- Designer vs. Developer
Designers and developers often work together in a project. Usually, the layout is passed on to the developer who hands it back to the designer. After that, the layout looks will totally be different compared with the first design. Therefore, to avoid making lots of change, it will be better for designer and developer to collaborate and discuss layout concepts/wireframes, highlight and emphasize padding, as well as plan out margins and line heights and all the other design details of your site to avoid any misunderstandings and confusion.
- The Fold
Not many designers know how to maximize the usage of whitespace, in fact they insist on squeezing as much content as possible high on the page, which, as a result, takes too many spaces on the page. It is important to remember that we do not know the point where users have to start scrolling. Since it is impossible to know the fold lies on viewer‘s screen, it is not worth worrying about.
- Explaining Your Design
The last stage is to discuss with your client and explain your motive and principle. In this case, make sure you use easily understandable words or conversations rather than make fluffy generalizations. Moreover, it is important to back up the choices and stay clear of vague arguments that may make little sense to others.
From the explanation above, we can see that whitespace has lot of advantages and functions more than we might know. It doesn’t only create harmony, balance, and help to brand a design, but it is also used to take a reader from one element to another. Furthermore, nothing can beat whitespace in terms of producing simple and uncluttered look that delivers better information that your readers will surely enjoy and appreciate.