White space changes how a design is perceived. Website Design

Hello. This is Lake and Moon Design.

When you’re creating a website or thinking about a redesign, have you ever found yourself thinking something like this?

“Since we’re going to the trouble of building a website, I want to include everything—our company’s strengths, our services, our track record, and the CEO’s vision!”

I understand that feeling all too well.

When there’s “empty space” on the screen, it feels like a waste, and you can’t help but want to cram it full of text and banners.

But how do users feel when they see a site crammed full of information? They’ll likely think, “There’s too much text—I don’t feel like reading it,” or “I still don’t know what this company is really trying to say,” and end up closing the page.

In this article, I’ll explain why “packing in too much information” is counterproductive in web design. I’ll also discuss the very important characteristics of “white space”—which is often mistaken for mere “empty space.”

Why “Overcrowding” Prevents Your Message from Getting Across

“More information ≠ a better website.” In fact, when a site is overloaded with information, the message fails to get across at all.

This is because the viewer’s gaze gets lost.

The human brain unconsciously searches for “where to start reading” and “what’s most important” the moment it sees a screen. However, when information is packed in without any gaps, everything jumps out at the eye with equal intensity, and “priority” completely disappears.

Imagine a supermarket flyer. Information is crammed together, strongly stimulating the desire to buy. This is an excellent design for “selling.” However, conveying a “brand philosophy” requires a different approach.

What’s needed to help users recognize information as distinct groups and keep their gaze from wandering? That’s “white space.”

Side Note: The Essence of “High-Quality Information” as Defined by Google

When I suggest “let’s pare down the information” in design meetings, I often hear concerns like this: “Doesn’t Google value comprehensiveness? Won’t our search rankings (SEO) drop if we cut content?”

To put it simply, there’s no need to worry. If we examine Google’s official definition of “high-quality content,” it becomes clear just how logical our emphasis on “white space design” really is.

1. Sites That Don’t Put Users First Will Not Be Rated Highly

Google has introduced a system called “Helpful Content” and clearly prioritizes “content created for people, not for search engines.” Sites that simply cram in keywords and pack information without any breathing room run the risk of being judged by Google as “detrimental to user convenience.”

2. E-E-A-T: Trust Stems from “Readability”

Google uses “E-E-A-T” (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) as its evaluation criteria. Among these, “Trustworthiness” isn’t guaranteed by the accuracy of the information alone. An interface that allows users to instantly understand “who is communicating, for what purpose, and how” enhances a site’s trustworthiness on its own. Conversely, sites with excessive visual noise that cause the user’s gaze to wander will lead the brain to judge them as “not trustworthy”—regardless of how valuable the content may be—resulting in users leaving the site.

3. Metrics: “Time on Site” and “Satisfaction”

Google closely monitors how users behave after visiting a site. Sites with no white space—where simply reading the content is exhausting—will prompt users to hit the “Back” button immediately. A high rate of these “bounce visits” sends a negative signal to Google, indicating that “this site failed to solve the user’s problem.”

In other words, “designing with white space and grouping information to make it easy to read” is not merely a matter of aesthetics; it is a proven strategy to convince Google that “this is a valuable, high-quality site.”

 White Space Defines a Brand’s “Personality”

White space isn’t just about making the site “easy to read.” In fact, it’s also a key factor in determining the “distance” and “warmth” between the brand and the user.

The way white space is used clearly reflects a company’s “personality.”

For example, a design with generous white space creates a sense of “leisure” and “calm,” conveying a sense of luxury and refined confidence. It’s a dignified stance that deliberately maintains a slight distance from the user.

Conversely, a design that minimizes white space and increases density creates a sense of “vitality” and “passion,” fostering a feeling of approachability that brings the brand much closer to the user.

We fine-tune this “brand temperature” by adjusting the ratio of font sizes (the “jump rate”) and controlling white space down to the pixel.

“At what distance and with what warmth do we want to engage with our customers?” When that stance seeps into the white space, a sense of “authenticity”—one that needs no words to be understood—emerges.

White Space as Design

In other words, white space in good design is not a gap created by chance. It is an expression of a strong will to “leave space intentionally.”

“I want to convey this, so I’m deliberately leaving the surrounding area empty.”

“Since this information isn’t needed right now, I’ve chosen not to display it.”

In this way, it’s about prioritizing content and having the courage to let go of the rest. Designing white space is, in essence, nothing less than “designing a company’s communication.”

White space is, after all, just one part of the design; it is only when it works in tandem with font size, color, and the tone of photographs that a brand’s “identity” truly emerges. However, the most important and fundamental foundation of this is the “control of white space.”

Why Is It So Difficult to Achieve Beautiful White Space?

So why is the world flooded with “sites that lack beautiful white space and are overloaded with information”? There are three main reasons.

The first is “client psychology,” as mentioned earlier. When a client requests, “Since we have the space, why not add this banner too?” the production team often fails to logically explain “why this space is left empty (white space as a functional element)” and ends up adding information simply because they were told to.

Second is the “limitation of template structures.” When designing by simply plugging photos and text into a pre-defined framework, it’s impossible to make subtle adjustments—such as “let’s make this white space wider than usual to express this brand’s aesthetic.” As a result, the site ends up looking like just another run-of-the-mill site with “average spacing.”

The third factor is the impact of “device evolution.”
Websites from a few years ago were designed to fit much smaller monitor sizes than today’s.Because information had to be crammed into a limited screen width, there were “physical constraints” that made it necessary to cut back on white space. It’s often a remnant of that era that sites—whether they’ve continued to be updated using the original design or were designed based on outdated standards—feel “cramped and cluttered” when viewed on today’s large monitors.

That’s why an environment that doesn’t restrict expression is necessary

To bring the “beautiful white space (the brand’s warmth)” designed on the screen to life on the website, the implementation environment is also crucial. We primarily use two different tools depending on the project’s objectives.

Comparing the characteristics of each tool helps clarify the ideal form the website should take.

The current version of WordPress has seen significant advancements in its “block”-based editing system. It offers the intuitive experience of stacking blocks, allowing administrators to flexibly adjust layouts on the spot—for example, when they think, “I’d like to add a little more white space here.”

On the other hand, for brand websites where a company wants to meticulously craft its “identity” without even a millimeter of deviation, a “headless CMS” like microCMS truly shines. Since there are absolutely no system-side constraints, it’s possible to implement the “meaningful white space” and “subtle character spacing” we’ve designed exactly as intended—100% in line with the design’s intent.

Rather than adapting the design to “what the system can do,” we adapt the system to “the experience we want to convey.” Regardless of which tool we use, the key is to create an environment that delivers the “design of white space” to users without compromising it.

Summary | White Space Is Design for Communication

It’s easy to “add something” because “something feels missing.” However, if there’s something you truly want to convey to the recipient, you need to have the courage to “subtract.”

Creating white space isn’t simply about cutting out text. It’s “a design strategy to ensure the message you most want to convey reaches the audience you most want to reach.”

If you’re looking at your company’s website right now and thinking, “There’s a lot written here, but I feel like we’re not really conveying what makes us great,” it may not be a lack of information—it might be a lack of “white space.”

Why not start by organizing the information you’ve crammed in and re-examining “what you really want to show”?