Re: Rules or white space for separating rows and columns?

["Patricia Egan" <capdev -dot- communications -at- gmail -dot- com>]

This discussion came up at work not long ago. The graphics team deleted
vertical rules from the table template and the SMEs hollered. I did some
research. APA, CMS, ACS, OSM and others all recommend the omission of
vertical rules in tables. Then I checked Tufte's *The Visual Display of
Quantitative Information.* See page 179 for an example of a supertable,
without vertical rules, which Tufte developed. When I presented my findings
in a slide presentation, I used the same table, once with the vertical rules
showing and then with the vertical rules hidden. Using a large screen, I
flipped back and forth between the two versions. The spacing was exactly the
same in both; only the vertical rules were different--shown or hidden. The
experience resembled sitting with the eye doctor and being asked which is
better, A or B. You might like to try it yourself.

Pat


On 6/17/08, Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> wrote:
>
> Milan Davidovic reported the following advice: <<From Carolyn Rude,
> "Technical Editing" 2nd ed., p. 167: "Vertical and horizontal lines
> (rules) separating rows and columns are discouraged except for highly
> complex tables because the lines clutter the table with visual noise.
> White space is the preferred method for separating rows and columns.
> Too much space between columns, however, may result in inaccurate
> reading because the eye may skip to a lower or higher row.">>
>
> Good basic advice, but not to be taken as a rule <ahem> of nature.
> Rude is certainly correct that you don't want the table to look like
> a sheet of graph paper, but absolutely forbidding the use of lines is
> going too far. The basic principle can be boiled down to "use the
> minimum number of rules necessary to visually group related data and
> separate it from unrelated groups of data; where possible, use white
> space instead of a line". You can easily tell if white space provides
> sufficient distinction by walking back about 10 feet* and looking at
> the table: if you can see distinct rows and columns using white space
> alone, you don't need lines. If adjacent lines blur together, you
> need more space or an occasional line to group things appropriately.
>
> * Your distance may vary. <g> The point is that you should see the
> rows as single objects, not as individual words.
>
> For example, you'll often see a very simple format in which the
> column titles are bordered on top and bottom only by a line that
> separates them from the text above the table and the rows below the
> titles that contain the table's data; a final horizontal line at the
> bottom of the table separates it from the text that follows. That's
> very effective without creating visually intrusive numbers of lines.
>
> For cell data that align neatly (e.g., all left justified or decimal
> aligned), you don't usually need vertical lines, because it's easy to
> scan vertically downwards without skipping to another column.
> Horizontal lines are more necessary, particularly in wide tables,
> because it's more easy to skip lines. So you'll often find it
> necessary to insert horizontal lines or white space, but not vertical
> lines.
>
> <<Right now, I'm building a template in the shadow of legacy
> documentation that is chock full of tables, almost all of which make
> full use of rules to separate rows and columns; relatively few of
> these tables are "complex". If I follow Rude's advice, I'm pretty
> sure I'll experience some opposition.>>
>
> If everyone is enamored of the lines, the most effective approach is
> to eliminate some, but not all, of the lines: cut out any lines that
> don't help, and retain the ones that do. Odds are good nobody will
> notice. If you're old enough to remember the paper used for line
> printers (and some smaller dot matrix printers), you'll be familiar
> with another alternative that often works even better than white
> space and lines: use light color shading to group rows of data. For
> example, a 10% or 20% grey can be used to group one set of adjacent
> rows, and the absence of this shading for the next group of rows
> provides a clear but not distracting visual separation.
>
> This works best where the groups of data are roughly equal in size
> (number of lines); it can produce distracting variation in the amount
> of color on the page if the groups vary widely in size.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> -- Geoff Hart
> ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
> www.geoff-hart.com
> --------------------------------------------------
> ***Now available***  _Effective onscreen editing_
> (http://www.geoff-hart.com/home/onscreen-book.htm)
>
> Print version: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fStoreID=1505747
>
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-- 
Patricia Egan
P. O. Box 194391
San Francisco, CA 94119-4391
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or 
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007 
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
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