Modern trend of too much white space in WWW web page design

[SilverSolder]

I opened up "my eBay/ All Selling" this morning to see how the various bits and pieces I had listed for sale were doing...   Only to find... shock horror...  the eBay web design team finally got round to "modernizing" the Selling pages - by ruining them, as usual!

They have done the only thing they seem to know how to do:  increased the amount of white space on the pages, and reduced the amount of information you can see without either scrolling, or clicking on a new page altogether.

If this trend continues for another couple of iterations, My eBay will be reduced to a completely white page, with just one single non-white pixel in the middle that is there for the sole purpose of giving the design team something to remove in the next update!

Honestly, I think if these people were responsible for designing the Excel spreadsheet,  we would only see four cells in a spreadsheet...  no matter how big our monitor, they would just scale the four cells to make them take up the entire screen!   - That idea immediately seems ridiculous when we talk about spreadsheets...  why can't modern web designers seem to understand that it is just as ridiculous on any other information containing page?   
     

[mindcrime]

I opened up "my eBay/ All Selling" this morning to see how the various bits and pieces I had listed for sale were doing...   Only to find... shock horror...  the eBay web design team finally got round to "modernizing" the Selling pages - by ruining them, as usual!

They have done the only thing they seem to know how to do:  increased the amount of white space on the pages, and reduced the amount of information you can see without either scrolling, or clicking on a new page altogether.

If this trend continues for another couple of iterations, My eBay will be reduced to a completely white page, with just one single non-white pixel in the middle that is there for the sole purpose of giving the design team something to remove in the next update!

Honestly, I think if these people were responsible for designing the Excel spreadsheet,  we would only see four cells in a spreadsheet...  no matter how big our monitor, they would just scale the four cells to make them take up the entire screen!   - That idea immediately seems ridiculous when we talk about spreadsheets...  why can't modern web designers seem to understand that it is just as ridiculous on any other information containing page?   
     

This. x100000000000

[MikeK]

Web design is done by too many children, who have no experience and may not even give a damn.  (And have more confidence than they should.)

[T3sl4co1l]

To a certain extent, it's your own fault.  (I know, real persuasive with an opener like that...)  Maybe it doesn't matter so much once you're used to it, but the point is readability.  Extremely wide paragraphs are hard to read.  Someone not used to it, will find it slower to read and more prone to error.

Personally, I normally use a browser window around 1000px wide, though have been sitting at 1200 for a while as too many "desktop version" sites demand there be no inbetween.

If your habit is a maximized window on HD (or bigger!) screen, well that's your problem -- or it should be, depending on the website, whether they've found a way to use up all that space.

Also if you're using ad blockers, that may leave a lot of white space... should be N/A on eBay, but it really gives you some idea of how much sheer trash some sites blast you with, or try to.

Best practice is for a website to be readable at any size, "responsive" as they say -- the big difference is that, since the 90s left, no one had a 640x480 monitor anymore, and everyone got comfortable with say 1024x768 being the smallest supported.  Then everyone started walking around with 480x720 and such screens in their pocket.  And pixel scale is all over the place, we have 2k screens in handheld sizes; we never used to have to worry about scaling, maybe a bit with laptops but we squinted and managed -- now all that has to be handled by the OS and browser, with only a little input from the web page itself (most importantly the <meta name=viewport content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> tag).  The rest is handled by some combination of CSS and JS (some responsive changes can be done in CSS, hiding or stacking sidebars; JS can rearrange the whole document, change zoom, etc.).

So, the situation isn't great on either end.  Web pages suck, sometimes tailored for smaller screens, sometimes larger, or both, or inbetween as well; clients often have no choice (small screens), or make choices that aren't the greatest (maximized windows on huge screens, using scaling or not). 

Tim

[SilverSolder]

@T3sl4co1l,  the old screen layout was much better - it literally worked great last night - so how is it "my fault" that they changed it?

Should I adapt by only looking at eBay in a 500px by 500px browser window?  -  I can see that it actually makes sense, and that it would work just fine, but why force users to peep at eBay through a keyhole?


This gave me an idea - setting the page magnification to 60% - 70% actually takes us back to what it used to look like...  LOL! 

[RoGeorge]

The main reason is most of the visitors nowadays are using mobile phones (or a tablet at best), devices with small screens and slow resolution.  Or maybe a gaming console, or a smart TV that has no mouse, things like that.

Therefore the webpages are optimized for phone browsing and touchscreens, and nobody cares anymore for the power users browsing from a desktop/laptop.  Would be too expensive to have two distinct webdesigns, one for the very small and one for the very big screens.

[SilverSolder]

The main reason is most of the visitors nowadays are using mobile phones (or a tablet at best), devices with small screens and slow resolution.  Or maybe a gaming console, or a smart TV that has no mouse, things like that.

Therefore the webpages are optimized for phone browsing and touchscreens, and nobody cares anymore for the power users browsing from a desktop/laptop.  Would be too expensive to have two distinct webdesigns, one for the very small and one for the very big screens.

The smallest tablet I have is an 8" Lenovo...  I just had a look at eBay using that.   It shows so little information that you have to scroll all the time to do even the most basic thing.

Basically, it seems optimized for viewing from across the room...   nothing else.  Just like on the big screen, except even worse!

[james_s]

This drives me crazy. I almost always have my browser zoom set out to 80% these days, and some sites I'm down to 70% now. It keeps increasing! I really don't understand the trend toward having everything on a massive sea of useless whitespace. You need a 4k monitor now to fit the same amount of information that used to fit in 1024x768, I hate it. I almost never use anything full screen, I typically have at least 2 or 3 different windows open with stuff I'm working on and I want to be able to see it all at once.

[Someone]

Personally, I normally use a browser window around 1000px wide, though have been sitting at 1200 for a while as too many "desktop version" sites demand there be no inbetween.

Oh, thats where its coming from! I was just mashing the zoom until a desktop style interface appeared (which would then be completely wrong for other pages on the same root).

[wilfred]

The main reason is most of the visitors nowadays are using mobile phones (or a tablet at best), devices with small screens and slow resolution.  Or maybe a gaming console, or a smart TV that has no mouse, things like that.

Therefore the webpages are optimized for phone browsing and touchscreens, and nobody cares anymore for the power users browsing from a desktop/laptop.  Would be too expensive to have two distinct webdesigns, one for the very small and one for the very big screens.

That was my initial thought too. I did a quick look and found this in the Ebay site for sellers. I assumed Ebay was incorporating changes they determined worked for their bottom line and not otherwise. I actually thought more than half would in reality be "a vast majority" or "nearly everyone". Even so I'm still not one of them.

<QUOTE>
Mobile Optimisation

More than half of the transactions on ebay.com.au have a mobile touchpoint. To optimise your listings for mobile:

    Include the correct Item Specifics, so we can make sure important information about the listing appears where it should on mobile devices
    Use our listing fields for postage, payment and returns information so we can share this with buyers browsing on the go
    Keep the formatting simple in item descriptions. Use black font, size 12-14, on a white background for readability(italics are mine). Use bold headings and bullet points for easy scanning
    Don’t use active content such as JavaScript, Flash and form actions
<END QUOTE>

[SilverSolder]

There are still hundreds of millions of PCs and Macs in use across the world...  why give them all an inferior experience?

This kind of thing is what happens when Big Tech gets a monopoly, after a short love affair during the growth years...  - you get the service that is convenient to them, not the service you actually want and need.

[gnuarm]

Maybe I'm showing my age, but I typically have my browser zoom set for 120% or more on a 17" laptop.  I don't see anything different about white space on ebay.  In fact while checking that, I found a guy in North Carolina (less than an hour from my contract assembler) who is selling at a good price 900 of the AK4556VT I'm looking for! 

What I hate is the trend these days to use light grey fonts on light grey backgrounds.  This web site does that although the font is not so bad it's hard to see.  Some web sites are so bad it is very hard for me to read and I give up. 

Why is that a thing?  Grey on grey.  WTF? 

[wilfred]

There are still hundreds of millions of PCs and Macs in use across the world...  why give them all an inferior experience?

This kind of thing is what happens when Big Tech gets a monopoly, after a short love affair during the growth years...  - you get the service that is convenient to them, not the service you actually want and need.

Let's assume Ebay is not actually self destructive and are following the demands of customers. I also don't agree Ebay has a monopoly. My last purchase was on Aliexpress as was the previous one.

[Ed.Kloonk]

There are still hundreds of millions of PCs and Macs in use across the world...  why give them all an inferior experience?

This kind of thing is what happens when Big Tech gets a monopoly, after a short love affair during the growth years...  - you get the service that is convenient to them, not the service you actually want and need.

Let's assume Ebay is not actually self destructive and are following the demands of customers. I also don't agree Ebay has a monopoly. My last purchase was on Aliexpress as was the previous one.

I think eBay has a monopoly on a certain group of buyers. They don't like to stray.

[james_s]

I think eBay has a monopoly on a certain group of buyers. They don't like to stray.

I would love to stray, but what option is there? I've explored a few alternatives but always walked away thoroughly disappointed. Nowhere near the selection of interesting stuff and sky high asking prices on anything that was even remotely interesting. It's a classic chicken & egg problem, none of the competitors have ever hit critical mass.

[wilfred]

I think eBay has a monopoly on a certain group of buyers. They don't like to stray.

I would love to stray, but what option is there? I've explored a few alternatives but always walked away thoroughly disappointed. Nowhere near the selection of interesting stuff and sky high asking prices on anything that was even remotely interesting. It's a classic chicken & egg problem, none of the competitors have ever hit critical mass.

Let's also not overlook that Ebay doesn't actually sell the stuff. If sellers put sky-high prices that's their own business. If people buy it then that's too bad for anyone who wouldn't. Someone else could undercut them if they get too greedy. That's a fact of commerce since way before the internet.

[Brumby]

White space tells me nothing.

This modern trend causes more work to do things.  I despise it.

[SilverSolder]

[...] Let's assume Ebay is not actually self destructive and are following the demands of customers.  [...]

Every product that has ever flopped probably started with the best intentions...   ?

Just because they are not intentionally creating a worse user experience, doesn't mean that they aren't.

Also consider that perhaps this is just one bad manager at eBay, whoever is their head of design, that is driving the influence towards white space after having trekked the deserts in his or her youth, becoming fascinated with the concept of wide open spaces.

There is a balance point, on a web site, between "too busy", "just right", and "too much white space".   The EEVblog forum is a good example of something that is close to "just right", in my view.   Can you imagine the eBay team designing a forum?  Each page on your screen would only contain six lines of text...  Still, someone could come along and say 'they are not actually self destructive', but it doesn't actually change the fact that they got the balance wrong!

[YurkshireLad]

I don't think any modern "UI designers" re-design for their users/customers. It's either for what the designers think is best, or what the designers think their users/customers think is best.

Google's UIs are mind boggling. GNOME desktop? Just no. Don't get me started on Windows 10 and other Microsoft applications. And Amazon? Can you not design your website to flow properly?

UI design is easy. GOOD UI design is not. I've stopped assuming designers know what they're doing or that they're designing for their users. 

Middle aged man shouts at cloud!   

[Bud]

It was Jobs who introduced this shenanigans. Jobs loved making presentation slides with just one or three words on the entire gigantic screen. They are still doing this crap. Go to Apple web site and see how much information they put on a given screen. I it is hard to find  a website worse than Apple's. Naturally, everyone else "followed the leader".

[Syntax Error]

There is no such thing as a UI only a UX.

I should place the above statement on a big blank A4 sheet in a monospace font at 10em size. But out of respect for Dave's forum... My point is, web developers are so focussed in on their super whizzy javascript framework user interface, with CSS tricks, they have no idea that they are being paid to deliver a positive user experience for their client's online customers. The user experience is often not good, especially when sites are built 'reactively'. You want more margin with that padding in portrait mode?

So who can the frustrated users complain to? No-one. Try finding someone at, for example ebay, who will listen, act and follow up. Digital executives don't know 'web', and the web consultants know it. Anyway, these crap sites are revamped every nine months as part of the developer team's ongoing clusterf*kup. You want some extra line spacing with this post?

[AntiProtonBoy]

I'm in the "less is more" camp. I like Spartan interfaces, provided the design does not get in the way of productivity, and is not loaded down with JavaScript shitshow under the hood.

Web development has been a race to the bottom industry. It has become the last resort career option for many CS drop-outs.

[gnuarm]

I don't think any modern "UI designers" re-design for their users/customers. It's either for what the designers think is best, or what the designers think their users/customers think is best.

Google's UIs are mind boggling. GNOME desktop? Just no. Don't get me started on Windows 10 and other Microsoft applications. And Amazon? Can you not design your website to flow properly?

UI design is easy. GOOD UI design is not. I've stopped assuming designers know what they're doing or that they're designing for their users. 

Middle aged man shouts at cloud!   

Once I thought I would get an idea of how really good web pages were constructed by looking for web page design awards.  What I found were winning pages full of fancy graphics like it was the Oscars.  I found no indication there is a standard of excellence or even a motivation for web page design that is utilitarian. 

[bd139]

Oh don’t get me started on that.

On a comedy note I built the front end for a large fintech system about a decade ago. Worked down to 1280x760, had decent info density and was efficient and reliable.

Along comes a remarketing job with two UI designers with 32” 4K screens. New interface rollout caused a massive shit show because clients with old corp laptops couldn’t actually see any content without scrolling 

Moral of the story: if you want highly efficient usable software give your developers a shit laptop with a tiny screen to work off 

[AntiProtonBoy]

If developers are worth their salt, they would do proper unit testing.