WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

ALL CAPS- Recommendation

for

From: Karen McCall
Date: Jan 22, 2022 6:27AM

Not sure if anyone remembers when Microsoft made all of the text for the Ribbon tabs all caps and the backlash they got because people couldn't read them. I think it was Office 2010 or 2013.

Camel Case works bets. All caps for acronyms.

Barry is correct, we use the shape of words to predict the word and read faster. With all caps, that ability is removed. This not only affects those using screen readers, but those with learning, cognitive and other print disabilities as well as those with some sensory disabilities who find spatial relationships of characters difficult to process at the best of times. All caps just adds another barrier.

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Barry via WebAIM-Forum
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 3:39 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List' < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Cc: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] ALL CAPS- Recomendation

To add to what has already been posted, I would reluctantly allow two or three words in menu items, for example, but not in titles or text unless they are acronyms. In that case, even some of those might use title case if they are conventionally read out as a word instead of letters, such as Nato.

Blocks of capitalised letters are square, whereas all sighted people read words quicker by recognising the shapes that the letters make in combination as a whole in a word.

It's estimated that sighted readers read all caps words 25% slower than non-capitalised. For someone who is partially sighted or has learning disability, this could make reading considerably longer.

For people with dyslexia, the fully capitalised words can just swim about as if they are alive.






-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of L Snider
Sent: 21 January 2022 9:26 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] ALL CAPS- Recomendation

Hi Radhika,

I always advise clients to limit the use of ALL CAPS. It is harder to read for everyone, but people with low vision, who don't use screen readers, have a difficult time with it.

Cheers

Lisa

On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 5:20 PM Radhika Soni < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Happy Friday!
>
> I just wanted to know if it is ok to use ALL CAPS for some of the
> content while designing the website. I know, it is not a good practice
> to use ALL CAPS , as it can cause readability issues.
>
> As I have seen that NVDA and VO do read all caps as words instead of
> letters, even when they are not *CSS* styled using *text-transform:*
>
> But not sure if all the screen readers read capital letters as words
> or not?
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you about your thoughts if any screen
> reader would cause any issue.
>
> Regards,
> -Radhika
> > > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flist.w
> ebaim.org%2F&amp;data%7C01%7C%7C6612b071f35c4a33789f08d9dd82b806%7C
> 84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637784375774136918%7CUnknow
> n%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLC
> JXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&amp;sdata=NVO7I4ytGenLfsw6Jg58NhC0doKHh7wLRiMxSvcy
> y9Q%3D&amp;reserved=0 List archives at
> https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebaim
> .org%2Fdiscussion%2Farchives&amp;data%7C01%7C%7C6612b071f35c4a33789
> f08d9dd82b806%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C63778437577
> 4136918%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLC
> JBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&amp;sdata=YRZMgJaCAR0I9rMCzySlnA7z
> nWlMOE%2FmqfEwwcpJAmU%3D&amp;reserved=0
> >