My personal website uses lots of containing DIV’s that have a 1px gray border and a header with a gray background and bold white font. (Similar to how SitePoint does its menus.)
Should Text in the gray-shaded headers be Title-Case or UPPER-CASE??
And why do you say so?
Thanks,
Debbie
Interesting question!
While I’ve read some usability recommendations for calls-to-action button text (generally title case recommended and no punctuation) I haven’t seen any studies/articles about headers… but I’m sure they are out there.
They would be filed under “writing for the web” or “web content writing” I believe.
Also likely the font you choose matters: UPPER CASE can be harder to read than Title Case with some fonts. Especially the deficient ones like Arial who can’t tell the difference between I and l (luckily Verdana can, but most sans-serifs don’t).
Moved to content writing forum as seems more appropriate 
I would generally go for Title Case, or even Sentence case. It is widely accepted that using lower case letters makes text easier to read, because the letter forms are more distinct. Personally, I don’t like overuse of capital letters (I’m forever taking them out of my bosses’ work) and so only use them where they are absolutely required. On the other hand, if you’re only going to have short extracts of text, you may consider ALL CAPS to be a suitable stylistic choice - but if you do, I would suggest having Sentence case in the code, and using CSS (text-transform) to capitalise it, and also to increase the letter spacing slightly, as this will off-set the shoutiness and make it a bit easier to read.
Ideally you should have enough visual clues (colour, border, spacing, positioning) that an item is more important that you don’t need to rely on casing to convey that.
Do you feel the same way about Menu Items??
And what about Article Headings??
Ideally you should have enough visual clues (colour, border, spacing, positioning) that an item is more important that you don’t need to rely on casing to convey that.
True, but if I have my “box” with a gray border, gray heading strip, and bold white font in Title Case (e.g. “Featured Article” using <H1>) and then within that box I have another heading of sorts (e.g. “The Benefits of using Postage Meters” using <H2>) and possibly a sub-caption (e.g. “(Saving more than you’d think!!)”) then maybe all of that Title Case washes out?! :-/
Attached are two samples of what I’m talking about… (Mods please approve!!)
Thanks,
Debbie
It applies to text, headings, bullets, the lot. I rarely use title case even in titles. It’s a stylistic thing, there’s no right or wrong way, it’s up to you to find a house style that you’re comfortable with, and that works for your site, in your context, your design and your font. What’s right for one person might be wrong for another.
I normally use Tile Case when making the title for my article. It really doesn’t make any difference to me if I’ll try using the other. It’s more of a writer’s style as what Stevie had mentioned above. Whatever style makes you comfortable.
I prefer Title Case where you only capitalize non-grammatical words: “There is a Quick Brown Fox” for both headers and menus. However, like Stevie said, it’s a stylistic choice. Sentence case is just as valid, though I personally don’t like to use it for headers and menu items.
Also, it does really depend on the font. Some fonts are much easier to read lowercase than upper case. Some fonts the uppercase may be a bit too “strong” and seem like you are yelling. And other times the uppercase may be perfect (and some fonts only come in uppercase =p).
Sorry folks, this thread died back in June. Let’s leave the skeleton in the closet.
Thread closed.