When does extra whitespace stop helping?
We recently had a small discussion about bottom spacing in a B2B product.
The layout was using 80px of bottom padding, and the feedback was that it felt a little cramped. So we started looking at 160px instead.
My first thought was whether doubling the spacing was really necessary.
But looking at different screens made me question the idea of having one fixed value in the first place.
A page with a few settings and short descriptions doesn’t need the same breathing room as a dashboard filled with charts, tables, and longer text.
Sometimes 80px is plenty. Other times, 160px might actually make the content easier to take in.
I still think consistent spacing matters. I just don’t think consistency should mean forcing the same number onto every screen.
Maybe the rule should be about when to use each spacing value, rather than picking one value for everything.
Replies
For bottom spacing in particular I stopped picking a number at all and derive it from what sits at the bottom. In my app the tab bar floats over the content, so a list's bottom padding is the bar's height plus a small gap. On a screen with a button pinned at the bottom, the padding is the button block's height, and the content fades out under the button. The value changes per screen, but the rule is the same everywhere: the last item must be able to scroll fully clear of whatever covers it. Consistency lives in the rule, and the named spacing tokens scale with screen size, so nobody types 80 or 160 by hand.
One thing that helped me: tie spacing to content density instead of screen type. Keep a small scale (say 8/16/24/48/96) and pick the step by how much the eye needs to rest, so dense dashboards get the larger gaps between groups while simple settings pages stay tight. Then check it by squinting or blurring the screenshot: if the groups still read as distinct blocks, the spacing is doing its job, and if they merge, step up one notch rather than doubling.