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> "...that gives the content some air." lots of whitespace and "air" has become especially fashionable in the past many years. it makes design easier in some w

> "...that gives the content some air." lots of whitespace and "air" has become especially fashionable in the past many years. it makes design easier in some ways without necessarily pushing it forward. yes, it forces more conscientiousness of essentiality and contribution of each element (a good thing), but it's also used as an ipso facto justification to resist change and meeting needs (a bad thing). i love seeing designs that are intricate yet coherent. that seems to push boundaries more than "air". that approach seems more challenging than "cut as many elements as necessary to achieve a desired white space ratio".

gdubs 6y ago
Yes, great point! Even the best design principles can fall into 'trend' territory if they're not applied intentionally, to solve an actual problem. Exceptions definitely make the rule, and a site might find that extreme information density is what's called for. It really comes down to being intentional, being wary of trends for trends sake, and hammering on the constraints, and the problem one is trying to solve for the user.
meristem 6y ago
Can you tell me more about how more whitespace makes design easier?
- LoSboccacc 6y ago
  it's a consequence of how people handle complexity here we call it the deer - headlight problem. why doesn't the deer dodge? because it's a novel situation, he's under pressure to understand and there's no frame of reference for instincts to take over same with non driven users (users that aren't doing a specific job) having a novel interface, they don't know which operations and options are irreversibile and so get frozen trying to understand everything the computers tells them at once and once they're overwhelmed they just get stuck giving UX air is a good catchall that both forces you to parcel only what's important for your user and help user not getting overwhelmed by options a more detailed advice would be to present branching decisions in order of commitment and only showing the relevant options at each step, but more whitespace is a good rule of thumb because it forces you into wizards without becoming a mouthful like this one, and gives you enough agency to come up with alternatives design to wizards of you can get by with other representations of the data to be manipulated
baddox 6y ago
I don't see how it's a justification to resist change any more than any other recommendation is inherently a justification to resist change that violates the recommendation.
galfarragem 6y ago
Design is more complicated than just 'give content some air'. Here[0] doing that would be a recipe to disaster. I'm a user of this tool and it really works like it is. I doubt that making it look more trandy would make it more functional. [0] https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/assets/img-bru/mainscr.png https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/assets/img-bru/mainscr.p...
- murermader 6y ago
  Just because you got used to this tool, does not mean it is good UX. To me this looks really cluttered, and I would be overwhelmed, if I looked at all those options for the first time. And I don't even see a reason that all these different modes need to be visible at the same time. It also takes up alot of space. There are probably many ways to make this more user friendly, but if it works for you, thats great
  - balfirevic 6y ago
    > Just because you got used to this tool, does not mean it is good UX. To me this looks really cluttered, and I would be overwhelmed, if I looked at all those options for the first time. It is also true that looking cluttered at first sight does not mean it's not good UX.
  - wildrhythms 6y ago
    Airplane cockpit design is also "cluttered", but the people who will be using the cockpit interface (trained pilots) want that. The cockpit is designed for the pilot, and in every case design should be catered to the needs of the user. I work in UX specifically and try to oppose designing same-y interfaces at every turn. Different apps have different users with different needs. Unfortunately, this is an uphill battle as we've established some mystical need for "branded" interfaces that all look and act the same, regardless of the function or user need.
    - rusticpenn 6y ago
      Airplanes are driven by people who are trained specifically for this purpose, Software tools don't have this requirement.

gdubs 6y ago

Yes, great point! Even the best design principles can fall into 'trend' territory if they're not applied intentionally, to solve an actual problem. Exceptions definitely make the rule, and a site might find that extreme information density is what's called for. It really comes down to being intentional, being wary of trends for trends sake, and hammering on the constraints, and the problem one is trying to solve for the user.

meristem 6y ago

Can you tell me more about how more whitespace makes design easier?

LoSboccacc 6y ago
it's a consequence of how people handle complexity here we call it the deer - headlight problem. why doesn't the deer dodge? because it's a novel situation, he's under pressure to understand and there's no frame of reference for instincts to take over same with non driven users (users that aren't doing a specific job) having a novel interface, they don't know which operations and options are irreversibile and so get frozen trying to understand everything the computers tells them at once and once they're overwhelmed they just get stuck giving UX air is a good catchall that both forces you to parcel only what's important for your user and help user not getting overwhelmed by options a more detailed advice would be to present branching decisions in order of commitment and only showing the relevant options at each step, but more whitespace is a good rule of thumb because it forces you into wizards without becoming a mouthful like this one, and gives you enough agency to come up with alternatives design to wizards of you can get by with other representations of the data to be manipulated

baddox 6y ago

I don't see how it's a justification to resist change any more than any other recommendation is inherently a justification to resist change that violates the recommendation.

galfarragem 6y ago

Design is more complicated than just 'give content some air'. Here[0] doing that would be a recipe to disaster. I'm a user of this tool and it really works like it is. I doubt that making it look more trandy would make it more functional. [0] https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/assets/img-bru/mainscr.png https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/assets/img-bru/mainscr.p...

murermader 6y ago
Just because you got used to this tool, does not mean it is good UX. To me this looks really cluttered, and I would be overwhelmed, if I looked at all those options for the first time. And I don't even see a reason that all these different modes need to be visible at the same time. It also takes up alot of space. There are probably many ways to make this more user friendly, but if it works for you, thats great
- balfirevic 6y ago
  > Just because you got used to this tool, does not mean it is good UX. To me this looks really cluttered, and I would be overwhelmed, if I looked at all those options for the first time. It is also true that looking cluttered at first sight does not mean it's not good UX.
- wildrhythms 6y ago
  Airplane cockpit design is also "cluttered", but the people who will be using the cockpit interface (trained pilots) want that. The cockpit is designed for the pilot, and in every case design should be catered to the needs of the user. I work in UX specifically and try to oppose designing same-y interfaces at every turn. Different apps have different users with different needs. Unfortunately, this is an uphill battle as we've established some mystical need for "branded" interfaces that all look and act the same, regardless of the function or user need.
  - rusticpenn 6y ago
    Airplanes are driven by people who are trained specifically for this purpose, Software tools don't have this requirement.