When designing a new website it’s essential to keep your pages clean, uncluttered, and easy to navigate.
White space is a critical aspect of website design that should never be overlooked. It provides breathing room for your content and layout. It is not only about aesthetics, but also plays an important role in improving the overall experience.
No one likes to see a cluttered website that’s difficult to navigate. When you use whitespace, you not only declutter your design but also make it easy for people to see the relationships among the elements on your page.
The Definition of Whitespace
What Is Whitespace?
Whitespace, also referred to as negative space, is the area on a web page between all the design elements on a page.
It’s the negative space in your layouts or designs. Whitespace is just as important as any of the other design elements on a website.
It can be used in web design to create a clean, minimalist look that allows for easy reading and navigation.
White space can be used effectively to separate different parts of your layout, make your content flow easier, and keep your design clean and simple at the same time. Below is an excellent example of using white space in web design and breaking up a page into different sections
In most cases, web designers use whitespace to create a visual flow throughout the elements of their design.
Whitespace can be a very effective tool to utilize when planning your next web design project.
One of the best ways to keep the clutter out is to add plenty of whitespace between your sections, paragraphs, images, text, and other elements on the page.
The Importance of White Space in Web Design
Whitespace should be taken into consideration in every design project. It’s one of the easiest ways a cluttered web page can be improved.
It helps communicate information clearly, guides the users’ eyes throughout the page, and gives a general feeling of visual harmony to a design.
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Understanding how it can be used and the principles of whitespace is an important part of becoming an effective web designer.
Having plenty of space in your designs can make a huge difference in how your content is displayed, and even how much information people retain from the content you’re providing them.
By surrounding the page elements with lots of empty space, you’re giving them plenty of breathing room and thus greatly improving the look and feel of your designs.
But using whitespace goes beyond aesthetics.
Whitespace can also improve the effectiveness and functionality of the page. Using white space in web design makes content more readable, less cluttered, and more visually appealing.
Benefits of using whitespace include:
- Improved comprehension
- Decrease in clutter
- Better balance in page layout
- Help guide users along the page
- Allow users to focus on important elements
- Enhance visual separation of individual sections
- Highlight to Call-To-Action
These are just several advantages of using negative space in your designs. If you’re deciding of whether to add extra space or not, it’s always safer to go with more space.
However, just like with any other skill, it’s important to learn how to use it correctly. Otherwise, you might end up with a long, empty page that the user has to scroll through to get to the actual content. The best way to learn how to use and apply whitespace is by looking at how other well-designed websites apply it on their pages.
One of the most obvious examples of great usage of whitespace is the Google website. Their homepage is mostly white space with just a search box in the middle of the page. By removing all other elements, Google leaves no doubt what action they want users to take.
Another great example is the Apple website. As you can see their hero image has plenty of space around the main product image.
They also have very few visual elements on the page, which makes the elements that are there, that much more important. They do provide plenty of links in the footer, but overall their designs always tend to be fairly minimal with lots of negative space to help direct users to important pages.
Resources: How To Use Whitespace Correctly
- How To Use Whitespace from A List Apart – Post from AListApart on how to use Whitespace to improve your designs.
- Why White Space Is Crucial To UX Design – Read why whites space important when it comes to UX.
- Why whitespace matters – Find out why the benefits of using whitespace.
- Whitespace in Web Design by Treehouse – Article from Treehouse on what is whitespace and why you should use it with nice examples.
- Effective Use of White Space in Web Design – Learn how to use white space effectively. Great examples and tips.
- Are You Using Whitespace In Your Website Design – Line 25 shows real-life examples of white space being used on various websites.
Check out the infographic about the benefits of integrating whitespace into your designs.
As you can see, it’s important to understand the concept of whitespace. Adding space between elements and making sure that content isn’t crammed next to other text or images helps guide users through your website. White space is more than just the absence of clutter; it creates rhythm and balance in a layout.
Most novice designers neglect to use whitespace or do not know how to use it correctly resulting in websites that look cluttered and unbalanced.
Website Examples That Use Whitespace in Their Designs
Legent Health
Great use of whitespace on this website. Legent Health website looks minimal but clean and not cluttered.
Link: legenthealth.com
As you can see from these examples, when used correctly, whitespace can make a big difference to the overall appearance of the site. Adding whitespace to a page can greatly improve the design and overall look.
That is why it’s so important to understand what is white space and how to use it correctly when designing a website.
INFOGRAPHIC: The Importance of Whitespace in Web Design
From Visually.
