Zebra-Striping

Grids, matrices, and tables are commonly used to organize information. A number of design techniques and psychological principles address how viewers’ eyes can be guided through a visual work. Designers refer to such objectives as "creating visual flow." One common technique, “zebra-shading,” is intended to guide eyes through the grid by alternating shaded and unshaded rows or columns. However, the effects of these manipulations have largely not been explored experimentally. We will review the techniques designers use to guide the eyes of their audience, associated psychological foundations, and outline some research done on the graphic design of a specific type of grid: tables. Then, we will describe an experiment wherein participants conducted a visual search task in grids with different shading manipulations. The analysis showed data trending toward improved response time when the target followed the shading.

[1]  Jessica Enders,et al.  Zebra striping: does it really help? , 2007, OZCHI '07.

[2]  Christopher D. Wickens,et al.  The Proximity Compatibility Principle: Its Psychological Foundation and Relevance to Display Design , 1995, Hum. Factors.

[3]  Jeremy M. Wolfe,et al.  Guided Search 4.0: Current Progress With a Model of Visual Search , 2007, Integrated Models of Cognitive Systems.

[4]  C M Carswell,et al.  Choosing Specifiers: An Evaluation of the Basic Tasks Model of Graphical Perception , 1992, Human factors.

[5]  S. Palmer,et al.  A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: I. Perceptual grouping and figure-ground organization. , 2012, Psychological bulletin.

[6]  Edward R. Tufte,et al.  Envisioning Information , 1990 .

[7]  Prasad Bokil.  Functions of Grid, a key for flexibility in framework , 2009 .

[8]  R. B. Macleod,et al.  A Source Book Of Gestalt Psychology , 1939 .

[9]  Marc L. Resnick,et al.  Visualizations to Facilitate Online Tabular Presentation of Product Data , 2004 .

[10]  H. Wainer.  Graphical Visions from William Playfair to John Tukey , 1990 .

[11]  A. Treisman,et al.  A feature-integration theory of attention , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[12]  M. Wertheimer.  Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. II , 1923 .

[13]  A. Treisman.  Perceptual grouping and attention in visual search for features and for objects. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[14]  Francis T. Marchese,et al.  Exploring the Origins of Tables for Information Visualization , 2011, 2011 15th International Conference on Information Visualisation.

[15]  Yaoda Xu,et al.  The impact of item clustering on visual search: It all depends on the nature of the visual search. , 2010, Journal of vision.

[16]  S. Palmer.  Common region: A new principle of perceptual grouping , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[17]  R. Whelan.  Effective Analysis of Reaction Time Data , 2008 .

[18]  Philip J. Barnard,et al.  Cinematography and interface design , 1995, INTERACT.

[19]  Kazuhiko Yokosawa,et al.  Visual search in divided areas: Dividers initially interfere with and later facilitate visual search , 2013, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[20]  Andrew Ehrenberg,et al.  Rudiments of Numeracy , 1977 .

[21]  S. Palmer,et al.  Rethinking perceptual organization: The role of uniform connectedness , 1994, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[22]  M. Wertheimer.  A source book of Gestalt psychology. , 1939 .

[23]  Thomas E. Bradstreet,et al.  Grables: Visual Displays That Combine the Best Attributes of Graphs and Tables , 2012 .

[24]  Susan L. Franzel,et al.  Guided search: an alternative to the feature integration model for visual search. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[25]  Howard Wainer,et al.  Improving Tabular Displays, With NAEP Tables as Examples and Inspirations , 1997 .

[26]  J. R. Pomerantz,et al.  A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: II. Conceptual and theoretical foundations. , 2012, Psychological bulletin.

[27]  Joseph H. Goldberg,et al.  Visual Search of Food Nutrition Labels , 1999, Hum. Factors.

[28]  Howard Wainer,et al.  Understanding Graphs and Tables , 1992 .

[29]  J. Nielsen.  F-shaped pattern for reading Web content, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox , 2006 .