RE: Capitalizing...research need

["Barbara Philbrick" <caslon -at- alltel -dot- net>]

I have read that upper case in particular and excessive initial caps impair
readability. However, I can't put my hands on a source.

A quick Google search turns up the following from http://usability.gov/:

"Guideline: Display continuous (prose) text using mixed upper- and lowercase
letters.

"Comments: Reading text is easier when capitalization is used conventionally
to start sentences and to indicate proper nouns and acronyms. If an item is
intended to attract the user's attention, display the item in all upperc a s
e ,
bold, or italics. Do not use these methods for showing emphasis for more
than one or two words or a short phrase because they slow reading
p e rformance when used for extended prose.

"Sources: Breland and Breland, 1944; Engel and Granda, 1975; Moskel, Erno
and Shneiderman, 1984; Poulton and Brown, 1968; Smith and Mosier, 1986;
Spyridakis, 2000; Tinker and Paters"


I also include the following because the irony of the second paragraph slays
me:

"York University follows a modified lower case style. The basic rule is to
capitalize all proper names, trade names, government departments and
agencies of government, names of centres, departments, Faculties,
universities, associations, companies, clubs, religions, languages, nations,
races, places and addresses. Otherwise lower case is favoured where a
reasonable option exists. Upper case slows down the readability and
comprehensibility of a sentence.

"This section has been subdivided into sections, including: CAPITALIZING
ACADEMIC SUBJECTS, CAPITALIZING DEPARTMENTS AND ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS,
CAPITALIZING GOVERNMENT, CAPITALIZING OTHER/MISCELLANEOUS, CAPITALIZING JOB
TITLES, and CAPITALIZING TITLES OF WORKS OF ART."

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-199665 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-199665 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Gene Kim-Eng
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 3:18 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Cc: Chuck Martin
Subject: Re: Capitalizing...research need


SW is not our main business (our SW "product" is a tool that our customers
use to configure and install our main product), so to be frank we don't
expend as much effort on our SW docs as we do on the rest of our products,
but one convention we do follow is to not pepper the instructions with the
names of dialogs or windows over and over again.  The bolded title is used
once at the beginning of the instruction, and thereafter the text refers
only to its contents, says "this tab," or something along those lines.  We
also make heavy use of screen caps, numbered callouts and fragmented
statements
(example: if there's a button called "Run," there's a numbered arrow
pointing at it in the screen cap, and below the figure a description that
says "(#) does blahblahblah," rather than "Run button: does blahblahblah").

Gene Kim-Eng


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