Can I use alternate colors for rows using Metro design guidelines?
And if I've multiple ListBox in the same view which is the suggestion?
Can I use alternate colors (the same for each control)? I see that this creates a bit of confusion.
[Update]
Here the sketch.
Design guideline shouldn't be a barrier for some usability improvements. Guideline is universal document while each case could have its own features.
For easy reading of separate rows (in tables etc) one should be able to distinguish them. So, be sure, whether reading is hard. Then use some techniques to distinguish them. It could be not only alternating colors, but supporting lines, too. In any case, it should be just enough to distinguish, not to cry out of it.
The Dark Horse Analytics blog has the best explanation on how to make tables more visually appealing by actually removing the distracting visual elements from them: http://darkhorseanalytics.com/blog/clear-off-the-table/
If you look at the blog you'll see that they advise against the 'zebra stripes' approach, which in my experience causes other design problems due to the alternating nature of colours. You should be able to convert any alternate colour row tables to ones without using them if you think more carefully about the use of styling in your tables. It actually makes the design more flexible and adaptable.
Just to provide a balanced argument, here is another article that does some testing on different strategies for table designs: http://alistapart.com/article/zebrastripingdoesithelp
The only issue I have with this article is that it doesn't compare plain table styling to the optimized table styling like what the Darkhorse Analytics people suggested, so you can't really compare the results.
