With all the terms that get thrown at us during our design education (be we self or institutionally taught), it is easy to understand why some land only glancing blows with barely any penetration into our psyches.

Those that will soon fade from our realm of full understanding without the constant reinforcement and attention being devoted to them. Which is what we are wanting to do today, devote a little attention to a staple of web design, negative space.

What is negative space?

For those who need a reminder, let us take a moment to break it down to basics: there are two types of space in design, positive and negative space. Positive space contains all of the elements of your site, content, navigation, images, etc. Negative space (often referred to as whitespace) is all of the empty space in between, the space around the content that separates the elements and helps to structure and define the way the user interacts with the content in the positive space.

Now that we have that, let’s move on, shall we? There are also two types of negative space, micro and macro. Micro negative space is the space between the smaller elements of the design. Things like the space between paragraphs, individual lines of type, all the way down to the space between letters and words. Macro negative space is the space between the larger, core elements of the design such as your header and footer.

Yeedor

Friendship Hamburg

Moving Things Design Company

Micro negative space

First, we will take a look at the smaller end of the spectrum. Keeping in mind that size doesn’t designate the micro side to a position of minimal importance. Far from it. Maintaining a good amount of whitespace within our blocks of text can go a long way toward making a site more readable, easier to scan, and it can even help people comprehend what they’re reading better.

And we are talking Micro, so this focus and maintenance needs to go deep. We need to take care to ensure that all of the negative space in our text blocks is tight. Not in a crowded way, but tight in an aesthetically balanced and open way. You got that, right? This means tackling the space between headers and paragraphs. Giving special care to the line heights within the paragraphs. Making sure that the space between line items in lists is not over or under done. Even the space between words and letters.

This is not always an easy task. Deciding on the margins and padding for this type of micro negative space adjustment is a delicate art. One that must be crafted with each individual site we build. Each site will have its own balance to find. While you don’t want too little whitespace, having too much will impact readability just as negatively.

Information Highway

Digest

MakeMatter

Macro negative space

Now let’s grow our scope a bit, and focus on the Macro side of this spectrum. Even though this side is the one we tend to give more attention, we still don’t often give it more open space to breathe in. People like to clutter their headers with everything they can possibly fit since it’s the first thing visitors see. Instead try to keep this area to a few key elements so users both know exactly where they are and aren’t suffocated as soon as they enter the site.

Like the header, it is quite an easy trap to fall into viewing the footers and sidebars of a design as something as a content catch-all. A place to shove and dispose of as much information as possible. Unlike the header, it is true that one can get away with more content in these areas, but care should still be taken to make sure we leave ample whitespace both around and within these elements as well.

The more we leave adequate room and spacing, the more purposeful our inclusions seem. It is when we clutter (unless done stylistically, which is easy to distinguish from what we are speaking about here) that we often give the impression that we did not give enough attention to our planning stages. Granted, when we clutter, we can surely place much of the blame on our clients, knowing that much of the cluttering is done at their behest. A point we will get to and cover shortly.

So we want to be sure that the space is plentiful around each block element, around the entire section (make sure your sidebar isn’t shoved right up against the main content of the site). Giving special care to ensure that there will be plenty of space around all calls to action. Let the CTA’s stand out.

Viva Audio

Goods

Do A Backflip

Why negative space matters

The use of negative space plays a huge role in usability. Which we have pointed to all along. Users not only need to be able to comfortably read all of the content on the site, but they also need to be able to easily find what they are looking for. Clutter keeps that from being an easy task. Many people, especially clients, tend to want to stuff every available inch of screen with information then wonder why the site looks so cluttered and unappealing. And, moreover, why users seem to have trouble navigating said site.

And this is where our powers of persuasion and trusting of our design sensibilities come in. As designers we have to get them to understand why this negative space is so essential and why making choices about what content to include in their site is equally important. This isn’t a waste of their money. It isn’t a waste of screen space either. But instead a needed element in making the important information already on the screen stand out in a clean and professional environ. We have to get them to see that.

We can still fit everything necessary within the site. Just make sure to give it all room to breath. It’s okay for people to have to scroll through the site, in fact it’s expected. “Above the fold” no longer holds the power that it used to. However, it’s still important to remember that content (particularly front page content) should be chosen wisely. The more options given on the initial page, the more difficulty the user is going to have choosing where to go next without becoming overwhelmed and possibly giving up on the site all together.

Pure Fix Cycles

Nurun

Nearly Impossible

How do you use negative space in your designs? Is ‘negative’ the correct term for whitespace? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Retro Bohema Font (exclusive extra bonus styles) – only $17!

Embarcadero’s  C++Builder XE5 closes the gap on the transition from desktop app development to mobile app development with new iOS support in C++Builder XE5.

Starting February 1, new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the latest version of Xcode 5 and must be optimized for iOS 7. Learn more about preparing your apps by reviewing the iOS Human Interface Guidelines.

It’s Tuesday which means that the Treehouse Show is back! In episode 70 of The Treehouse Show, Nick and Jason (@jseifer) talk about URL rewriting, responsive emails, QR code generation, and more.

This Week’s Links

• URL Rewriting for the Fearful ◆ 24 ways

• GitHub Résumé

• AutoJS by atmb4u

• Ink: A Responsive Email Framework from ZURB

• qrcode.js

• The HTML5 meter Element | CSS-Tricks

• Prism

• A Collection of Section Separators

The post URL Rewriting, Responsive Emails, QR Codes | The Treehouse Show Episode 70 appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Sunil Dasgupta, director of UMBC’s political science program at the Universities of Shady Grove, was recently interviewed for a Q&A on the status of Iran/Indian relations in the United States Institute of Peace “The Iran Primer.”

Of the course of the interview, Dasgupta provides insight into the complex relationship between Iran and India and how it has evolved over the last three decades.

“New Delhi has had relatively close ties to Tehran since the mid-1980s, but India has recalibrated relations over the last few years as Iran became the litmus test for its ties with Washington,” Dasgupta said.

He also describes how Tehran’s controversial nuclear program has affected ties between the two countries.

“New Delhi welcomed the nuclear deal struck by Iran and the world’s six major powers in November 2013, which it hopes will eventually lead to the lifting of sanctions. India’s one concern, however, is that Iran’s return to the global oil market will cut its interest in trading oil with New Delhi in Indian rupees — on terms favorable to India,” Dasgupta said.

You can read the full Q&A on the USIP website here.

The Indian Supreme Court last week upheld a ban on gay sex, a ban that was instituted more than 150 years ago and had been repealed in 2009. The law is known as Section 377 and makes homosexual acts in India punishable by up to ten years in prison.

Mathematics professor Manil Suri wrote for NPR Books about the subject and recommended reading Jeremy Seabrook’s Love in a Different Climate: Men Who Have Sex with Men in India, as a good way to understand the impact of the ruling.

“To understand the significance of a law like Section 377, one has to first have an understanding about the people it affects. Indian society is amazingly diverse in terms of class, language, caste, skin color, religion, among other factors, and its homosexual population is no different,” Suri writes.

You can read Suri’s full article on the NPR Books website here.

The mobile Web browsing of three million people reveals how pervasive ad tracking technology is and shows that Google’s is dominant.

Analysis of the mobile Web browsing habits of over three million people has revealed previously unseen patterns in how the major advertising companies carve up the Internet. Among the findings of a new study is that Google’s advertising tentacles extend to at least 80 percent of online publishers. It also found that if only a small fraction of Web surfers opted out of being shown shown ads based their previous online behavior, it would significantly decrease the industry’s profits.