Do Zebra Stripes Actually Help?

RyoShin writes "A List Apart, an excellent resource for web development and related aesthetics, has put together an article based on original research by Jessica Enders into 'zebra striping.' From the article: 'Zebra striping [coloring alternate rows] is used when data is presented in an essentially tabular form. The user of that table will be looking for one or more data points. Their aim is to get the right points and get them as quickly as possible. Therefore, if we set a task that uses a table, and zebra striping does make things easier, then we would expect to see improvements in two things: accuracy and speed.' The conclusion of the peer reviewed paper? It's a wash. Striped tables offered only a slight increase in accuracy and speed overall. The article notes a few other benefits to using Zebra striping, so it's all up to the individual."

Comments

Re:Do Zebra Stripes Actually Help?

[Thanshin]

The other option is Red. Red is always faster.

The now extinct Red Go Faster Striped Zebras easily outran cheetahs. They didn't actually go extinct; they just migrated so fast, time stopped for them.

Re:Coloring every 3rd or 5th row helps too

[rubycodez]

it's called green bar paper, and it's still used, young jedi.

Re:It looks nice

[redxxx]

But they still expend more effort on a owerty keyboard than on a dvorak one -- simply put, their fingers travel farther. They have fewer typos with the word Qwerty though.