White Space in UI design has different definitions and conflicting opinions on its importance? Also known as Negative Space, is the use of White space actually negative or it has some positive benefits for your UI and UX designs. Let us dive into the debate on Why White Space Is Important In UI Design? and discover the answers.
Introduction
The graphic design aims at communicating ideas better and aid in extending an excellent and user-friendly user experience. Graphic and UI design involves many design elements to enhance the visual appeal. White Space or Negative Space is one of the most important elements of UI design. It is also one of the most overlooked elements of UI design with many conflicts on its use and importance.
Let us understand the meaning and basics of White Space.
What is White Space?
White Space is often thought of as just blank space and therefore, a waste of screen and website space. White space is also known as negative space, emptiness, leftover space, or space. White space does not necessarily have to be white but any color space that has not been filled with a form or content. Hence, the use of the term Negative Space is prevalent. For instance, the background color of an object(button, link, text) on the website or app.
White space holds all designs together and creates a room for design to breathe for better readability and usability. It is a key component to designing a beautiful and usable website layout. Website owners and many designers make the biggest mistake of filling every inch of the space.
Why is White Space important in UI Design?
White space is a crucial aspect in enhancing the usability of UI design and user experience. Easily readable website designs offering a seamless user experience engage more audiences. UI/UX Designers must create layouts making proper use of white space elements to make them more efficient.
Let us dive deep into various benefits of white space in UI design and discover why does White space matters in UI design?
Enhanced Legibility & Comprehension
Readability improves when adding more space between text as the use of whitespace makes the content scannable. As per a study, proper use of whitespace between text, buttons, links, and other elements, and it’s right and left margins can maximize comprehension up to 20%.
Optimize the content of your website and apps for paragraph margins and line spacing. However, too much whitespace between lines can break the readability and the content will lose its meaning, usability, and purpose.
![What Is Typography, And Why Is It Important? [2022 Guide]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5sPrtgEE9QInw9dp-kg0L9gH086iQxkcvCbGOODxEElt-27A4QQI-mNsZcZgsdFaMjNAZgnyveKtdAtj8HPWV1iQRirtfL57OHUyn3jCH1S8Bag0V3l16-0LzrKZa3yoRAboIR3E)
The usability of white space differs on different page sections. A website’s header may be wildly dissimilar to the footer. Designers should take care of the content density when designing a website or an app. How much content is required in a specific portion of the website?
How much white space must be available. Here are some tips for styling and designing pages:
- A correlation in the font size & space and the number of links.
- Extra space leaves more room for the text to stand out. Consider adding space both vertically and horizontally to create space blocks.
Increased attention
Whitespace is powerful in drawing the users’ attention to a particular screen element. The elements with the surrounding space are more effective and grab attention.
Balanced Design
Too little or no use of whitespace makes the design look cluttered and cheap. It leads to confusion, negatively impacts readability and comprehension. On the contrary, too much white space makes the design look disorganized and disconnected. It also conveys the sense of less meaningful content and thus lessens the credibility. UI Designers need to make balanced use of the whitespace in designs for the best user experience.
Defines a Visual Hierarchy acting as a separator
The use of whitespace helps you create and define the visual hierarchy among various elements of your page. Use space to your advantage because it is not directly noticeable to most visitors. Importantly, if you add space between content, you draw more attention to the content only. The use of more space between lines of text makes skimming the content easier and allows scrolling within 2-3 minutes to read. Hence, it is best to add more white space rather than less instead of crowding too much information together. A delicate balance of space must be practiced in the website layouts.
Creates Contrasting Effects
The use of contrast creates a visual relationship for the Human Eye. Whatever stands out from texts draws more attention. Hence, balanced use of white space can grab the attention of more eyeballs.
For instance in the above image in the header section, there are two buttons: a free trial and purchasing the software. Both buttons are colored blue with the same amount of space.The free trial button uses an “empty” background whereas the purchase button uses a light blue background and white text. The contrast in color and plenty of white space between buttons is creating contrast and captures attention. The power of contrast grabs more attention.
Create Structured Content
The use of white space helps you create a structured pattern for your interface. Space between text is important to keep the content organized. It enables viewers’ recognize and understand the content and its intention better.
For instance, a new header conveys that the content is switching to a brand new subject. The correct combination of size, color, and style of
text and negative space improves readability for users. Big size headers with plenty of space are seen as more important compared to headers
closer to paragraphs.
Adds Emphasis on important elements
The whitespace separates different design components giving stress and importance to the elements. The surrounding space guides users where to look and what are the essential elements.
Designers surround crucial design components like logos with white space making them visible and emphasized. Space separates logos from other components to attract users to your branding.
Maximized Interaction Rate
The efficient use of whitespace helps designers convey the message quickly. For instance, the Call to Action buttons are surrounded by greater negative space, and given contrast help grabs attention. It increases the possibility of interaction or action by users.
Makes Sophisticated UI Design
Whitespace enhances the appearance giving it an aura of sophistication. Cramming content and graphics makes the design look cranky and cheap. More space between elements boosts the imagery and entire design.
Things to Consider When Using Negative Space
Consistent and Uniform
When applying white space, make sure to apply it uniformly and consistently making it meaningful and conveying the proper message.
Consistent space connects elements. Elements closer seem more related while elements with wide spaces display separation or new elements. For instance, Space out elements evenly to guide viewers to main points and the most important information, rather than on a full page. It ensures maximum absorbability. Do not use larger white spaces unless you need to convey a specific message.
Plan & discuss the Design Prototype
To create an effective design, plan and discuss with the designers what are your requirements from the design and what is important to convey.
You have to inform UI designers about your brand’s message and its importance. When designers know the message, they can plan better design prototypes. It will be easier for them to plan what elements to use, which elements will require more emphasis using spaces. Thus, planned and balanced use of negative space will aid your branding.
Common Designer Challenges Associated with White Space
Whitespace is a key design tool to create compelling User Interface designs and offer seamless user-friendly experiences. The use of White space for designers comes with a few challenges.
For website owners, it is of less importance because of the cost issues. More use of white space reduces the amount of content per page. It increases the number of pages required to be designed and developed, increasing the costs. Website owners thus demand designers to reduce the use of white spaces. It increases the conflict between the designers and website owners and thus increases the development time.
It becomes tough for designers to convince their clients of the value of whitespace for their business. Elegant UI designs with proper use of negative space bring greater conversions and usability.
Classification of White Space
White Space is classified in two ways-
- Based on Utility
- Based on Size
The two types of White Spaces based on Utility are:
1. Active Space
The space that is carefully considered emptiness and made intentionally by the designers to enhance the designs. The active space is created around essential elements to add emphasis to the element. Designers consciously add active spaces to the design for better visual structures and make them more compelling and attractive.
2. Passive Space
The Space that occurs naturally to separate lines or paragraphs or graphic elements. Passive Space is not intentionally used for meaningful designs but serves as the margin for the pages and elements.
The surrounding white space help viewers create and understand the flow and relationships between different content and elements.
Passive white space creates a room for breathing, while active white space creates a natural flow of complete design and guides users eye’s towards relevant content.
The two types of White Spaces based on Size are:
Macro & Micro White Space: These are the two components of Active White Space and are classified based on size.
Micro Space
The small space between different elements on a website is called micro space. The elements include menus, images, links, page headers, and other elements. Micro white space can be found between the internal page content. For instance, between the headers and paragraph text. It also creates padding around the wireframe’s logo and space between the buttons in the header section.
Macro Space:
Macro space is the bigger space between major elements of a website page. Macro white space is visible on every single website to the left and the right of the website content or elements. It is also seen in between the element blocks.
Before beginning any new designing project, UI designers create a prototype or wireframe that demonstrates the macro space visually.
In other words, the entire website design is designed in the macro space.
How to effectively apply White Space to UI design?
The use of whitespace differs for every website based on the type of website, business, and purpose of the content. For instance, Designers use plenty of negative space on a landing page to give more emphasis on a call-to-action button.
On the contrary, an eCommerce store selling apparels and Clothing involves more content. Designers have to adjust white space according to the content.
Hence, the use of white space should be made based on context, business purpose, and customer demands. There are no prescribed norms or rules on the use of White Space or Negative Space.
Some important Tips on how to apply White Space in UI Design
-
- Designers should not add more than 15 points of attention (emphasis) on a single page.
- You can analyze and compare your UI design ideas with other similar designs. You can learn from their website and come up with effective use of white space.
Conclusion
Whitespace is fundamental to a good UI design and better UX. When used well, white space or negative space can elevate a design to sophistication impacting the effectiveness of your site and provide many benefits.
To summarize, White space is critical to audience readability giving viewers a stopping point to rest and thus enhancing the absorbability of content. White space also positively helps in your business branding allowing more elegant designs. White space is an important fundamental element in Graphic Design.