What’s wrong with white?

Seems to me that people have a bit of a dislike of white.

As in white space.

I know it’s not really true – because so many people come to me and tell me that they love the clean, fresh feel of my websites – which often feature quite a lot of white space. I guess in reality, it’s more a case of people not being able to use white space to good effect. Or not even knowing they should use it. So many websites out there are too cramped, too cluttered.

Think of it this way. You probably have a couple of key goals for your website. Things you want people to do before they leave the site. So you might have, for example, some big graphical call out boxes which will hopefully take people on a journey in the right direction. But look at the difference in impact:

If you give people too many options, they’ll get confused and hit the back button. Yes, the illustration above illustrates two extremes. But it should give you the general picture – leave some white space around the elements that are important, and people are more likely to notice them and take action.