Capitals - XWiki

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(% class="box" %)

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(((

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Following this helps:

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* **people in a hurry** – words in capital letters are hard to scan and comprehend

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* **people who are stressed** – if you're anxious you need content that's easy to read

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* **people who are multi-tasking** – capped words are difficult to read

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* **cognitive impairments** – easy to comprehend words and sentences carry less cognitive load

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==

Guidance ==

Capitalised words are not easy to read for many reasons. We're more used to reading words in lowercase letters, so our brains find lowercase words easier to scan and absorb.

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H1.Donotcapitalisewholewordsorphrases." %)

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[[1. Do not capitalise whole words or phrases.>>doc:||anchor="#1"]]

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H2.Usesentencecapitalcaseinheadlinesandsubheads." %)

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[[2. Use sentence case in headlines and subheads.>>doc:||anchor="#2"]]

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H3.Usesentencecaseforbuttons." %)

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[[3. Use sentence case for buttons.>>doc:||anchor="#3"]]

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H4.Propernounsareanexception." %)

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[[4. Proper nouns are an exception.>>doc:||anchor="#4"]]

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" %)

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[[5. Do not capitalise terms, unless they are proper nouns. >>doc:||anchor="#5"]]

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[[Usability evidence>>doc:||anchor="#UEC"]]

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=== {{id name="#1"/}}1. Do not capitalise whole words or phrases. ===

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H-1" %)

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They are harder to read.

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=== {{id name="#2"/}}2. Use sentence case in headlines and subheads. ===

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H-2" %)

It's easier to scan.

=== {{id name="#3"/}}3. Use sentence case for buttons. ===

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(% class="wikigeneratedid" id="H-3" %)

It's easier to scan.

=== {{id name="#4"/}}4. Proper nouns are an exception. ===

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It's fine to capitalise the following:

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* names of people, places and things, including buildings and brands

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* specified committee, faculty, department, institute or school: Public Administration Select Committee

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* names of groups, directorates and organisations: Affordable Housing Action Group

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* titles of specific acts or bills: Human Rights Act (but ‘the act’ or ‘the bill’ at second mention)

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* names of specific schemes known to people: Right to Buy

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* names of wars: World War 1 and World War 2

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* job titles following the person's name

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* titles like Mr, Ms, Dr, the Duchess of Cambridge (the duchess at second mention)

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* titles of books: ‘Content Design’

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* header cells in tables: Yearly budget

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==

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{{id name="#5"/}}5. Do not capitalise terms, unless they are proper nouns. ==

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Generally, terms are not proper nouns, so should not be capitalised. Technical terms are not proper nouns. But if a word or term is branded as a distinct thing, treat it as a proper noun.

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\\Examples:

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\\As a (% class="mark" %)marathon runner(%%), you'll get a medal and a massage.

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\\Not

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\\As a Marathon Runner, you'll get a medal and a massage.

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\\I'm running in the (% class="mark" %)Virgin Money London Marathon(%%).

Not

\\I'm running in the Virgin money London marathon.

And

We're running a (% class="mark" %)sustainability project.(%%)

Not

We're running a Sustainability Project.

But

(% class="mark" %)The Eden Project(%%)

\\Not

\\The Eden project

== {{id name="UEC"/}}Usability evidence ==

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[['The science of word recognition'>>url:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/develop/word-recognition]], Mike Jacobs, 2003

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[[A to Z style guide>>url:https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style]] UK government website

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[['How Capital Letters Became Internet Code for Yelling'>>url:https://newrepublic.com/article/117390/netiquette-capitalization-how-caps-became-code-yelling]], Alice Robb, The New Republic, 2014

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[['100 Things You Should Know About People: #19 — It’s a Myth That All Capital Letters Are Inherently Harder to Read'>>https://www.blog.theteamw.com/2009/12/23/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-19-its-a-myth-that-all-capital-letters-are-inherently-harder-to-read/]], S. Weinschenk, 2009

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[['Say hello Writing readable content (and why All Caps is so hard to read)'>>http://www.digitalcookie.com.au/blog/writing-readable-content-and-why-all-caps-is-so-hard-to-read.html]], Marty Friedel, 2015

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[['The science of word recognition'>>http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/WordRecognition.aspx]], Mike Jacobs, 2017

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[[‘The Effect of Type Size and Case Alternation on Word Identification’>>url:https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421250?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents]], F. Smith, D. Lott and B. Cronnell, The American Journal of Psychology, 1969. Part-locked: free to access online with MyJSTOR account.

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[[‘Case alternation impairs word identification’>>https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/BF03333407.pdf]] Coltheart, M. and Freeman, R. 2013

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[More sources under the [[Discussion tab on old wiki>>http://readabilityguidelines.wikidot.com/capitals]] – need migrating.]

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