Lee McKusick

Zebra Stripes and Polka Dots

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 | Design, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Ok, no dots.

But anyone who’s ever worked with spreadsheets and tables has likely seen zebra stripes: where every other line is shaded to supposedly improve readability.

A List Apart published the results of a study in May that found that zebra stripes didn’t really help one way or the other. The problem with this study is that there wasn’t any pressure; there was no time limit, so participants had no trouble completing the easy questions.

This time around, a 15 second limit per question was imposed, and the tasks were harder (a bigger table, blank fields occasionally). In 3 of the 8 questions, zebra stripes had a “statisticaly significant” advantage.

User preference was also measured. 6 different versions of the same table was shown, and asked by participants to be ordered in terms of readability. Almost a third of participants selected the single-color, single-striped (traditional zebra striped) table as the most readable. Nearly another quarter said that the dual-color (green and gray) zebra striping was the best.

Personally, I would tend to go with the single-striped. I think the extra color distracts my eye a little to much. I would be interested to know what people think about a two-color striped table where the two colors are different shades of gray. I think that might be an acceptable compromise between the two.

I guess people just love their zebras.

Photo by Flickr user .imelda

Check out the original article here.

Tags: a list apart, readability, tables, usability, zebra stripes