Usability is not an exact science. Just because someone did a study that says light text on a dark background is hard to read doesn’t mean it is in your design. Just because Cynthia Says your site is accessible doesn’t mean it is. Every element on the page is relative to each other. To accurately determine readability and usability you have to test the site as a whole, not in little stand-alone chunks.
I agree with almost every article A List Apart produces. I like them so much that I regularly advise people to give the site a read, but I have to say something about their entry, Zebra Striping: Does it Really Help?, because I disagree with its process and what it implies.
I know the study wasn’t conclusive in any way, but this piecemeal approach to usability doesn’t accomplish much. There are too many variables in the way you can construct a table for a simple usability survey study to address. What about text alignment, font choice, line height, stripe color, borders, font size, contrast or table width? All these things affect usability and the study example didn’t vary in any of those ways.
What troubles me most about this type of inconclusive study is that when they get published on a site like A List Apart, it tends to be taken very literally. People read the generic conclusion and start removing zebra striping on their tables for no reason other than because the article said so.
Generic usability tests can be a nice place to start, but don’t let them determine your design and think for you. They are recommendations, not rules. When designing, take a moment to actually read and use the entire page you’re designing. Is it easy to read? Is there enough contrast? Can you tell the difference between navigation and page content? Can you scan the page? Common sense will answer almost all of your questions. If you have the time and the budget, usability testing your design as a whole should cover the rest.
I think you have a point, Josh, but I also have to say that I’m happy to see somebody take some time to do some research on some of the usability conventions we (okay, I) take for granted.
Most of the places I end up using tables are interior content pages, developed ad hoc. They rarely get a proper user test. So when I create those pages, they tend to follow whatever conventions I’m up to speed on. I appreciate it any time somebody puts the scientific method in place to put those conventions in context.
I’ll still be using zebra stripes, mainly because I think they make tables a little less boring.
Much love for the Interface blog from Pittsburgh.
I read that ALA article too & also disagree with its conclusions. My main objection is actually to the experimental design. The use of borders in the two (why not more?) sample tables obviated the purported value of zebra striping — making it easier to read across rows. (Many of the commenters on the ALA blog entry noticed this as well.) I usually have a lot of respect for ALA but this time I think they really dropped the ball.