Do you read tables in rows or columns?

Do you read tables by rows or columns?

  • I read across rows

    Votes: 33 55.9%

  • I read down columns

    Votes: 26 44.1%
  • Total voters
    59
U

ummmm........

Extremely normal.
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Okay, I tried this at another site, but I got more radioactive monkey answers than anything else. Why I think here will be any different at midnight on a Saturday I don't know, but I thought I'd give it a shot. (Also fun to see if anyone recognizes it from the other place.)

When reading a table that is free of vertical and horizontal lines, and has an equal number of items down and across (say, 4x4), do you read across the rows or down the columns?

EDIT: Okay, sorry. There are no headings, and the entries are arranged in no discernable order (alphabetical, numerical, priority, etc.).

EDITED JUST FOR PUNKBASS2000:

[pre]
Mitch Paul Stanley Phil John
Jerry Larry Mike Holmes Watson
Lupica Ron Tom Alex Patrick
David Rich Aryan Isaac Marc
Arthur Silver Blaze Jim Christian
[/pre]

And that took some doin', so I hope you appreciate it.
 
It depends on where the headings are and how the table is arrange, I'll say rows though, since that is what my brain is use to doing from reading.
 
It really depends on what is in the table, if I'm interested in what's in the columns, I'll read along the columns, and if I'm interested in what's in the rows, I'll read along the rows.
If I didn't care either way, I'd proabably read along the rows, though.
 
Depends on how the headings are arranged ans what catagories hold my interest. Generally columns, though.
 
Rows, like any good mathematician.

The x-coordinate comes first damnit! (stuipid Euclid and stupid Descartes and their stupid coordinates).
 
Rows, unless I'm exclusively concerned with a certain column.
 
I prefer rows, though if the info I need is the other way I'll switch. I would guess since we read left-right top-bottom in the West most Westerners would read this way. I'd be interested how cultures that use a different writing pattern read tables. I would suspect it is most natural however they read/write.
 
It's weird. This poll is going opposite of the other one.

I guess the appeal of columns to me is that I think of a column as one thing, so I read the first item and then move down the column. Moving to the next item in the row feels like skipping.

I agree that the instinct may be more for rows.
 
Rows. Gotta make sure the data I programmed is correct. :)
 
I read across in rows, but I really sort of try to take it in as a whole. Basically, if the list is small enough, I try to read it across as one row, with each vertical column being an element of a list.
 
Across the rows, since I read right to left, not up to down.
 
"EDITED JUST FOR PUNKBASS2000:"

Thank you.

"And that took some doin', so I hope you appreciate it."

Oh I do :). Please don't take it the wrong way that I'm still not voting, though, as I've been far too primed at this point to not be intentionally reading one way or the other. :D
 
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