Whitespace...as Far as the Eye Could See
There's a constant battle between designers about the use of whitespace. Especially since "flat design" has become so popular, whitespace is making quite the name for itself. There is a very loud "less is more" movement on the web and it is leading to a growing popularity of websites that contain very little content and a lot of whitespace. One has to admit that it is more pleasing to the eye than being smacked in the face with a full page of ads and content, but at a certain point you have to wonder, have we gone too far?
The less-is-more mindset is a dangerous one. Less can be more useful in certain scenarios, but pushing it too far makes your content painfully exhaustive to read through. Facebook, for example, recently rolled out a new design. In several interviews and articles that have been circulating the web they claim that this redesign is based on user feedback over almost a year of different UI demos and tests. However, the final product that they rolled out rolls the content that my friends post, which is the content that I actually care about on facebook, into a thin column that takes up about 30% of my screen. Menus take up about another 30% and the remaining 40% is either advertisements or whitespace. In my opinion, this is absolutely not acceptable. This is a prime example of less-is-more being pushed too far. In an attempt to make the UI appear clean and remove the clutter, Facebook has taken its most important aspect, the ability for people to communicate, and made it so painfully small that it's not useful anymore.
Everyone on the internet attacks Facebook, however, so lets search for some different examples. Twitter is an example of a site that properly uses a lot of whitespace. You might think I'm being contradictory here, here hear me out. Twitter's goal is to provide content in 140 characters or less in a simple feed. Because of this, all of your posts are very small and you want the content column to be relatively thin. A little word-wrapping makes the content easier to read and understand. This leaves a lot of whitespace on the sides but that whitespace allows for these content chunks to be very readable and useful. This is an example of a company who has properly analyzed their audience and chosen the perfect amount of whitespace for their product.
What about a site like amazon.com? Amazon uses almost NO whitespace at all, yet the site is still 100% useful and feels clean. Sure, a few of their pages can become cluttered depending on the products listed, but for the most part, I have never had a problem navigating amazon's incredibly complex site due to the lack of whitespace. This serves to prove that whitespace doesn't make content readable on its own, it's all about how it is used.
Objective Research Results vs. Subjective Research Results
As a software engineer I have worked with a slew of designers in the past and a lot of them (not all) have the same shortcomings that developers do. They become far too attached to your design ideas, much like us developers become far too attached to our code. Problems such as this have led to the constant misuse of design principles. Sure a designer can spout off 100 different reasons why their design is the best possible solution for your website, but the truth is they love it because it is their child, not because it serves the customer. They can tell you that extensive research and user tests were done in order to ascertain the best design approach for a site, but the truth is a good designer has a vision for the site and that vision will invalidate all research. When the research results come in we all view them subjectively. The results will be interpreted in a way that will justify our needs and desires. I have seen this in designers time and time again, research will come in and, to an outsider, it seems to clearly state why their design is a failure. However, the designer will take away a completely different set of facts from the research because his view is thwarted by his love for the design principles he has chosen. Many of the articles about the new Facebook UI state that extensive research and testing was done on the new UI but no results are actually posted. Why is this? My experience leads me to believe that the research was not posted because it wasn't valid. The designers did it themselves, or were too involved in the process, and took away what they needed to make their design better instead of redesigning the site completely to be what the user wants. The reality is, the feedback from users merely tells designers how they should modify their current design to please people and not how the design should be changed or rethought.
The only solution to this is to remove the designers from the research altogether. Have a third party who is completely objective complete the research and return the results. The designers will still interpret that as they need to, but at least the results themselves will not be skewed and they will be forced to face the reality of the results more often than not. I come to this conclusion because it is how I prefer to approach problems in my code. I like to bring my problems to someone who doesn't understand software at all, preferably someone who doesn't enjoy it at all either. Those are the people who can give you truly useful opinions as to the flaws in your approach to a problem, and that is how you correct problems in a way that will last.
Is there too much whitespace in facebook's new UI?
See results without votingHow Much is Too Much?
The answer is, there is no answer. The question is completely relative to the specific product that you are referring to. The real question is, are you taking the appropriate steps to ensure that your users are receiving the design that works best for them? That means, are you taking their use into consideration and allowing an objective party to help you interpret the research that has been done? If so, your use of whitespace is likely to be correct. If not, there's a good chance that you are making a critical error and it will negatively impact your product. Just remember to take a step back and realize one thing: the product you are working on is NOT your product, it is for your customers or users. Allowing yourself to let go and accept the fact that it is not your baby will allow you to make the changes that are needed in order to make it truly great. That is how you will determine how much whitespace is too much for your product.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon