What white space actually does.
White space isn't "wasted page real estate". It's a working design element. Every empty pixel is doing something — signalling, separating, pacing, hierarchising. Course designers who treat white space as the residue left over after content is placed will produce dense, anxious-feeling pages no matter how good the content is.
It signals hierarchy without words.
When two elements are close together, the eye reads them as related. When they're far apart, the eye reads them as separate. This is Gestalt proximity, and it's the most reliable visual grouping rule there is. A heading with little space below it belongs to the paragraph that follows. The same heading with twice as much space above and tight space below changes meaning — it's now the start of a new section, not a continuation of the previous one. Designers who don't think about white space end up signalling structure they didn't intend.
It paces the reading.
A wall of dense text invites scanning. Generous spacing between paragraphs invites reading. Single-column courses with line lengths around 60-75 characters and 1.5x line-height feel like books; the same content in a narrow column with tight leading feels like a form. The pace at which a learner moves through content is, in large part, set by how much space there is to move through. White space is the cadence of a course.
It tells the learner what matters.
Things surrounded by space draw the eye. A primary button with 20 pixels of clearance on every side looks important. The same button crammed against a paragraph and another button looks like ornament. Most "this button isn't getting clicked" problems are space problems, not styling problems. Give the important things room to breathe and they will be seen.
It reduces cognitive load.
A screen with many elements forces the learner to choose where to look first. A screen with the same elements arranged with deliberate space tells them where to look. The cognitive cost of "which thing matters?" is real — and it's pure friction, not learning. Every unit of cognitive effort spent navigating a busy layout is effort not spent on the content. Reducing visual noise is reducing cognitive cost.
Part two
How to use white space deliberately.
Most designers don't have a "white space budget". They place content, then place more content, then realise the page feels crowded and crop things. Better to start with the assumption that white space is the default — content earns its place by displacing it.
Use a consistent spacing scale.
Pick a base unit — 4 pixels or 8 pixels is conventional — and use multiples of it everywhere. Heading-to-paragraph: 16px. Paragraph-to-paragraph: 24px. Section-to-section: 64px or 80px. When all your spacing comes from the same scale, the page looks composed rather than improvised. When your spacing is random (12 here, 18 there, 26 over there), the eye feels the inconsistency even if it can't name it.
Give sections more space than paragraphs.
The most common failure: equal spacing between every paragraph regardless of whether they belong together. Section breaks should feel different from paragraph breaks. A new section is a new thought; signal it with 2-3x the spacing of a within-section paragraph break. Without that contrast, the learner can't tell where one idea ends and another begins.
More space around things that need attention.
The "tap area" rule applies beyond touch: a button needs room around it not just for fingers, but for the eye. Give CTAs, key concepts, headlines, and call-to-actions extra clearance. Tight elements feel utilitarian; spacious ones feel important. Use this consciously.
Less space between things that belong together.
Counter-intuitive but essential: a heading should sit closer to the content it introduces than to the section above it. Otherwise the heading visually attaches to the wrong section. This is the most common Gestalt failure in eLearning — headings floating equally between two sections, attaching to the wrong one. Tight spacing below a heading, generous space above it.
Resist the urge to fill the screen.
Slide-based authoring tools — Storyline in particular — invite filling the canvas. If there's empty space, the temptation is to add a "fun fact" sidebar, a decorative graphic, a callout box. Almost always wrong. A slide with three quarters of the canvas empty and one clear focal point will outperform a busy slide every time. Less stuff, more space.
Use white space to signal "look at this".
The single most-clicked element on a page should usually have the most space around it. Surround your primary action with breathing room and the eye finds it instantly. Cram the same action between two other elements and it disappears. The same visual styling that fails in a crowded layout succeeds in a spacious one.
Part three
Translating to specific contexts.
White space is contextual. What works on a wide desktop fails on a phone. What works on a slide fails in a Rise block. Some patterns to keep in mind.
Desktop has too much space; design for it carefully.
On a 16-inch laptop, your course is rendering in a viewport that's wider than most learners actually use. Max-width on the content column — 720px to 880px is conventional — keeps line length readable and creates margin space that looks intentional, not accidental. Without max-width, lines stretch to 130+ characters and reading slows dramatically.
Mobile has too little space; collapse hierarchies.
On phones, you have maybe 360px of width. White space has to come from vertical spacing more than horizontal. Increase the gap between sections, accept that things stack instead of sitting side-by-side, and don't try to preserve the desktop layout. A mobile design with deliberate vertical breathing room is more usable than a cramped version of the desktop.
In Rise: respect what the tool gives you.
Articulate Rise has built-in spacing between blocks. Most courses don't need to fight it. The instinct is to "tighten things up" with custom CSS or extra blocks — this almost always makes the course feel anxious. Trust the spacing scale Rise gives you. Customise typography, customise colour, but leave the spacing alone unless you have a strong reason.
In Storyline: take the canvas seriously.
Storyline gives you full pixel control, which means it's the easiest tool to make crowded. The 1280×720 canvas is bigger than learners think — fill maybe 60% of it. A focal point in the upper-left of the safe area, supporting elements arranged with consistent spacing, and big empty regions around the edges will look composed. Slides that hit the canvas edges feel claustrophobic.
White space is the highest-leverage design decision most courses ignore. Give your content room to breathe — your hierarchy will be clearer, your important elements will be seen, and your learners will feel less rushed. The empty parts of the page are doing real work. Treat them with the same care as the parts you fill.