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Reasons Why White Spaces Are Good in Web Design

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If you’re unsure as to the actual definition of ‘white space’, let us explain. White space essentially refers to the space between the different features of a design on a page.It can be used to distinguish gaps and breaks between titles, headers, footers, images and of course paragraph lines and breaks in the content. It’s clearly an element that is used on pretty much every single website in existence but is often overlooked by a website design company as a waste of the limited resources available on each individual page.

White space will ensure that your site looks clean, professional and easy on the eye. When white space is used effectively, users will be able to scan the page to find important information without being distracted by complicated layouts, cluttered menu bars and unappealing boxes of solid text. If your page has to convey a lot of different information, white space acts as a great instrument to separate chunks of content and navigational tools for easy accessibility and an improved user experience. And as every successful web design agency knows, user perception is the biggest single factor behind all web design ideas.

The advantages of white space may be disregarded by any website design company because of the simplicity behind its application. The effective use of white space comes hand in hand with the integration of the right colors, fonts, page margins and external links and should be considered just as important as all of these features.

In an age where clients expect their website design agency to develop sophisticated, cutting-edge sites as standard, web designers can often become preoccupied with implementing the latest tricks and gizmos into a site without taking stock of even the most basic elements of successful design. Quite frankly, we believe that white space is essential under any circumstances and should be utilized to full effect at every opportunity. There are several ways in which you can make the most of white space:

1. Measure the margins around different elements of your page with white space. Busy graphics or aggressive lines just don’t have the same effect. Users expect balance and clarity from your design, so finding that fine line between too much and too little white space is a trial-and-error exercise. Your site will look well-ordered and appealing if all your margins are kept consistent throughout the template, too.

2. Space your lines and text with a view to making the content easy to scan. If letters and words are pushed together the text can look clumsy and can be a challenge to read, but on the flip side, if lines are spaced too far apart the text can be puzzling to follow. This element of design really comes down to your personal judgment and taste and is a skill that will improve with practice. The right effect can, for example, be achieved by manipulating the line-height property associated with CSS and adjusting several different property values.

3. Titles and headings act as a great way to separate the information on your page, and should be surrounded by an appropriate amount of white space to make sure they really stand out to the user. Readers generally have a good idea of what they’re looking for in a web page and your job as a website designer is to guide their eye in the right direction.

4. As a rule, excessive use of graphics and banners can ruin the professional look and feel of your web page, but if you must place a variety of images quite close together then carefully measure the amount of white space in the margins between them to discover which pixel distance works best.

5. Psychologically, too, white space adds a sense of elegance and superiority to your page. Your design doesn’t have to look minimalistic or bare as long as white space is used in the correct manner. Consider the effect that the use of white space will have on your branding and how it will artistically communicate your business – again, this is a point that comes down to personal taste and a desire to experiment with user perception. Too little white space could communicate confusion, dis-organization and unreliability, qualities that you definitely don’t want associated with your brand, but too much white space could highlight an absence of content and a lack of user guidance.

Of course, if you’re unsure of the proper use of white space for your particular project, consult your website design company for some great advice based on experience and experimentation. If your web design agency fails to understand the importance of white space altogether you can be sure that your design will end up far too unbalanced and won’t impress your potential customers.

 

Bogdan

Bogdan is the founder of Top Design Magazine. You can find him in Bucharest-Romania so next time you want to drink a beer there and talk about web and stuff, give him a message.