What Is Whitespace In Web Design

What Is Whitespace?

Whitespace is the unmarked distance between different elements that provide viewers with visual breaks when they do design processing. This helps in reducing distractions and enabling smooth focus.

Intentionally, black spaces aren't pleasing to the eye aesthetically. They have a massive impact on how our brains absorb and process new items. Too much visual data and information crammed into a tiny and jammed space can lead to cognitive exhaustion. This can make absorption to our brain difficult and overload of information.

Why Is Whitespace Important?

To understand the benefits of whitespace, you need to think about how hard it is for your brain to process white pages or phone book’s entire page. All those columns of texts become squished into one indigestible information making it hard to find what you’re looking for.

Phone books are designed for displaying a lot of information in limited space. However, because of whitespace, most of the print layouts are formed so it can be easily understood. Such print layouts use more massive columns, and in between the paragraphs, there is more distance. The design is simple and has a primary effect on making a text look more readable and approachable.

Whitespace helps in emphasizing particular elements; thus assisting viewers in understanding what they need to focus on. Using whitespace to divide a layout assists in developing a sense of sophistication and balance. When it comes to web design, whitespace is essential both from an aesthetic view and a conversion optimization standpoint. Effectively using whitespace can make your website conversion-friendly, understandable, and navigable.

Five Websites that Use Whitespace

• Medium

  Medium uses whitespace to ensure readers continue scrolling further down the page. This is done by enticing the readers with notes showing the number of individuals viewing a post, number of those who have commented, and the related content that s next for them to go through. The whitespace encourages readers to look at the column in the epicenter of their screen, featuring a pleasing cover photo and title. It uses social evidence to display to the readers why they should continue scrolling.

• Wistia

  Strategically using whitespace can be easy as ensuring your call-to-action buttons and forms are visibly separated from your content. This change makes a significant variation in the perception of your content. Wistia is a video platform that supports its homepage with a drop-down and user-friendly question form. The CTA buttons act as the epicenter of the entire page and are given a lot of space to it apart from the main image and navigation of the site.

• Everlane

  Whitespace doesn’t necessarily mean the total absence of pictures or color. It means ensuring page elements are strategically and generously spaced to prevent confusion or overwhelming of your visitors. Everlane, a fashion retailer, shows off its latest clothing collection by opting for minimal establishment. The background page indicates a picture of its GoWeave blazer and a tiny call-to-action appearing in the screen’s center. This has encouraged users to click and use the hop now’ button. Everlane is an ideal example of directing users towards action without being aggressive or pushy.

• Harvard Art Museums

  This is known for displaying paintings of antiquated nature; however, their homepage has been modernized. The whitespace in this site offers the ideal backdrop of the tagged art, ensuring that nothing distracts from the displayed artwork. The site is about as close to an art exhibition center as you can reach. Its style of masonry design provides the user with a reason to continue scrolling and ensure that no image is crowded. For sustenance of the aesthetics of the gallery at minimum, the navigation of the website is hidden till the user moves their mouse towards the page's top.

• Shopify

  Shopify’s main objective is to get visitors to sign up for a free trial. For the direction of this action, the e-commerce platform has engulfed their sign up form with a lot of whitespaces to reduce distractions and ensure visitors aren't missing it. The main navigation of this website is displayed much minute than the form text and put out of the line at the highest point of the screen. This is to avoid driving attention away from the epicenter form.

Wobs helps to create the website of your dream

Your website’s design plays a vital role in your online marketing campaign’s success. If you want to drive the best results for your business, you must invest in designing a website that drives people to learn more about your business.

Remember that you are not only making it 'beautiful' for the eyes of your customers, you are also building your brand identity. And Google loves to reward websites that are well designed - by ranking them better.

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