“How many pixels should the margin here be ?”
When designing WEB and UI, I often thought like this.
I came to one conclusion after a bunch of research.
That is, “make the margin a multiple of 8”.
Benefits of making margin a multiple of 8
Many screen sizes are divisible by 8.
This is the main standard pixel counts and screen aspect ratios.
Most of the numbers that appear above image are multiples of eight.
In other words, if you set the margins and content width in multiples of 8, it would fit neatly.
If the minimum unit is set to 8, no fraction will appear.
Let’s compare the minimum unit of 8 and 10.
10 seems to be easier to use, it has fractions like above.
Fractions would appear dirty and should be avoided.
Benefits of having regularity
Easy to predict and understand for users
Regularity allows people to naturally recognize and predict patterns.
That way, users can get the information they want without hesitation.
It’s an easy-to-use UI design.
Significantly reduce engineer work costs
When coding, if the design is not regular, you have to specify the style for each element. That would be a huge amount of code.
However, regularity creates an intersection in the design. In other words, it can be a template.
If you can create a template, you and your team can reuse it. It leads to reduce the amount of code.
Also, when modifying, if you modify a template, all the parts to which it is applied will be modified.
From an operational point of view, the work cost will be completely different.
Designers can make decisions without hesitation
Designers would not get lost.
It would be great for designers to be able to make speedy decisions without hesitation about various numerical values.
Disadvantages of making it a multiple of 8
The number of smartphones, especially iPhones, that are not divisible by 8 is increasing. It means that there are some that are not divisible by 8.
However, this happens no matter which number you choose.
At the moment, considering all PCs, tablets, and smartphones, 8 is probably one of the optimal solutions because many of them are overwhelmingly divisible by 8.
