It can be tempting to fill every nook and cranny of your website with content, images, or just, well, something. Leaving empty space can seem wrong, like you’re leaving things unfinished or wasting space.

It might seem counterintuitive, but white space is a critical element that is useful, powerful, and vital to any visual design.

White space will make your content easier to read by improving legibility. The more visual clutter, the harder people have to to find and focus on what they’re interested in.

In fact, the opposite is also true: The less visual clutter, the easier it is for people to find and focus on what they’re interested in. You can strategically deploy white space to draw more attention where you want it.

A page filled with a dozen different things presents a dozen different choices to your visitor, and each of those choices is another layer of friction, another opportunity for them to go somewhere else entirely. Reducing the number of choices your visitors have to make and focusing their attention with white space is key.

White space is also a critical component of a balanced design. A dense page crammed full of visually distracting elements just feels wrong on a visceral level. It makes people uncomfortable, and that’s the last thing you want your visitors to feel.

White space is an incredibly useful and versatile tool. Don’t be afraid to use it!