5 ms·

> Rule 6: DON’T USE ALL CAPS > Because it’s harder to read ALL CAPS at a distance. Source? I've never heard this before and it's the opposite of what I would g

> Rule 6: DON’T USE ALL CAPS > Because it’s harder to read ALL CAPS at a distance. Source? I've never heard this before and it's the opposite of what I would guess.

ghaff 8y ago
Yeah. Someone ought to tell the US Department of Transportation. (CAPS probably do take more space but the statement that they're harder to read in the distance is definitely not true in the general case.)
- jbgreer 8y ago
  Came here wanting to cite a study advocating use of lowercase letters (as I've been told), but a quick search turned up this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2016788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2016788/ "Our finding that size thresholds for upper-case text were lower than those for lower-case text in Experiment 1 are not surprising, and corroborate the findings of (M. Tinker, 1963) that at great viewing distance (as simulated by small visual size), upper-case text is more legible, even in a font with a relatively large x-height, which might be expected to minimize upper- and lower-case differences. Other fonts, which typically have smaller x-heights, might be expected to show upper-case text to have even greater relative legibility. Contrary to Tinker’s findings, and the conventional wisdom, is the result that upper-case text is more legible in terms of reading speed, for readers with reduced acuity due to visual impairment, and in normally-sighted readers when text is visually small. This result may have practical significance as well; it suggests that, apart from economic considerations of how much space a given sample of text occupies, letter size determines legibility for low vision readers and for those viewing visually small text; and when point size is fixed, upper-case text is simply more legible, albeit less aesthetically appealing, than lower-case."

> Rule 6: DON’T USE ALL CAPS > Because it’s harder to read ALL CAPS at a distance. Source? I've never heard this before and it's the opposite of what I would guess.

ghaff 8y ago

Yeah. Someone ought to tell the US Department of Transportation. (CAPS probably do take more space but the statement that they're harder to read in the distance is definitely not true in the general case.)

jbgreer 8y ago
Came here wanting to cite a study advocating use of lowercase letters (as I've been told), but a quick search turned up this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2016788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2016788/ "Our finding that size thresholds for upper-case text were lower than those for lower-case text in Experiment 1 are not surprising, and corroborate the findings of (M. Tinker, 1963) that at great viewing distance (as simulated by small visual size), upper-case text is more legible, even in a font with a relatively large x-height, which might be expected to minimize upper- and lower-case differences. Other fonts, which typically have smaller x-heights, might be expected to show upper-case text to have even greater relative legibility. Contrary to Tinker’s findings, and the conventional wisdom, is the result that upper-case text is more legible in terms of reading speed, for readers with reduced acuity due to visual impairment, and in normally-sighted readers when text is visually small. This result may have practical significance as well; it suggests that, apart from economic considerations of how much space a given sample of text occupies, letter size determines legibility for low vision readers and for those viewing visually small text; and when point size is fixed, upper-case text is simply more legible, albeit less aesthetically appealing, than lower-case."