917742 - Zebra striping removed after updating to 24.0 (linux, 64-bits)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Camaleon]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130910160258

Steps to reproduce:

Updated from 17.0.8 to 24.0


Actual results:

Message pane lost the zebra striping style (no more alternate colored rows)


Expected results:

No change in this regard, keep the old style

Comment 1

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

This was removed by intend. See bug 811920 and it's comment 3 for why.

Comment 2

[Camaleon]

(In reply to Richard Marti [:Paenglab] from comment #1)
> This was removed by intend. See bug 811920 and it's comment 3 for why.

Thanks for pointing out that bug, didn't realize it was removed consciously. 

Anyway, it's a pity losing this feature only because of a problem with a color pattern in Ubuntu. The colors were just okay on many other Linux distributions and desktop environments. Maybe a less radical proceeding than removing it, could have been letting the user to toggle on/off this and setting the default as "off".

Comment 6

[Yogesh]

Whether it was removed by intent or by accident, it was wrong to remove it. That bug had barely any discussion or involvement of users. One dev(?) said the "only solution" is to remove it and then one other person said yes, and the feature was just removed. Seriously? The ONLY solution is to remove the feature??

The link to the 13 year-old article wondering if zebra-striping is useful studied just 244 people and only deals with horizontal tracking in tables. Email lists "also" need help with vertical tracking where I am trying to find a mail top-down. The linked article also mentions this:

Firstly, in this study there was a subjective preference for striped tables over plain. My reading and discussions with others suggest a number of people find zebra-striped tables more aesthetically pleasing. If many users like zebra striping (and another large group aren’t fussed either way), then why not apply it?

Secondly, this was just one experiment, with one dataset. It is possible that the particular design of this experiment meant that zebra striping had little effect. In other cases, particularly when there is considerable space between columns and/or the user is required to scroll horizontally, a more pronounced effect may have been observed.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, a number of participants in the study spontaneously reported using their finger, on or over the computer screen, to follow down columns and across rows. Other participants used their mouse to highlight rows of interest. These people were, in effect, creating their own “temporary” zebra striping. So we may be reducing the burden on our users if we do the zebra striping for them.

So in the end, having zebra striping enabled was harmless. Not having it was a clear handicap for users. Blows my mind that the arguments of this research was used as the rationale for removing an otherwise useful accessibility feature. The brushing off of reports of legitimately poor UX (especially for those suffering visual impairment ) as the wrong way to use an application is not only paternalising but excludes people by design.

Please consider this feature with the seriousness it deserves and please do not advice users to enable this using userChrome.css or any such inconvenient workarounds. This should be enabled by default with a UI preference checkbox to disable it if people don't like it. Because, like I mention earlier, having it and not needing it is a minor inconvenience. Needing it and not having it is a handicap.

Comment 7

[Yogesh]

For anyone reading, this is the link mentioned in the other report: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebrastripingdoesithelp/