Designing White Spaces, A Usability Issue
White (or blank) spaces are a good thing, at least in web design. As the web becomes more and more faster designers and programmers tend to place more features. At the end of the 90s we saw colors, pictures and sound in an excessive way. Unfortunately many web designers didn’t learn the lesson: sometimes, maybe usually, more is less.
Too much information and features are going to make a website difficult to use and to understand, affecting the whole site usability in a negative way. Users may feel themselves lost and silly, and they might leave forever.
This problem is starting to be seen at Amazon.com. There, the user is bombarded with a huge amount of information, images and interactive features. Just imagine for one minute that your a new customer at Amazon and you find yourself at this website:
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Another example is the Musician’s Friend website. Leaving almost no blank space gives the feel that using this site will be a headache.
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A good example
Flickr leaves a lot of blank spaces between elements, typography is big and homepage is not overloaded with information. Flickr is a powerful website that gives users a feel of simplicity. Notice the difference?
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