In web design, you have to deal how to treat headers, field names and links within a form. I seem to struggle with it everyday. The question always comes down to how I should apply capitalization? From example, in a simple form where a user has to fill out basic personal information (first, last, email,…) can be treated in a number of different ways.
Example 1 – Capitalize first letter of first word only
Your information
First name:
Last name:
Email address:
Work phone:
Cell phone:
I like this approach the best because it’s more conversational. Almost as if you are reading a book.
Example 2 – Capitalize first letter of all words
Your Information
First Name:
Last Name:
Email Address:
Work Phone:
Cell Phone:
I like this approach less because the capitalization on every first letter interferes which readability. Each word is given the same weight.
Example 3 – Capitalize all letters
YOUR INFORMATION
FIRST NAME:
LAST NAME:
EMAIL ADDRESS:
WORK PHONE:
CELL PHONE:
I really don’t like all-caps. The readability is terrible. There is no flow. Every letter has the same weight.
The capitalization style also poses problems for action hyperlinks.
Example 1: Add new category
Example 2: Add New Category
Example 3: ADD NEW CATEGORY
There are rules around this from a print aspect (The Chicago Manual of Style), but they don’t take interaction into consideration. Is there a good guide out there? Currently it seems to be all over the board.
