When to use all upper case?

Question

From my understanding:

1. It had been thought all uppercase (e.g. THIS IS SCREAMING) was hard to read because of the way the eye works.
2. It is now understood that all uppercase is hard to read just because people aren't used to reading it.

Though this is all academic. When should upper case be used? At the highest level heading, in all levels of headings or what? What about using all upper case in bodies of texts, for example an important sentence?

I thought the benefits were obvious but no ones mentioned them. They are to grab peoples attention and add another tool to achieve levels of visual hierarchy.

Answer 1

It's down to you to make that decision for your style guide. Take a look at some other organisations guidelines and use them to guide you:

• Wikipedia has some very clear guidelines on when to use uppercase. For example "Initial capitals or all capitals should not be used for emphasis."
• BBC say "Our style generally is to minimise the use of capital letters."
• Mailchimp and The Economist both guide against using uppercase in sentences but both style some of their headings in uppercase.

Answer 2

It's always a judgement call. Ideally, you'd use it as little as possible, preferrably never, because it's harder to read.

However, there are reasons why others compromise. Material design uses all caps for buttons to separate them from other text, as material buttons can have no borders. The consistent height of the letters creates a visual rectangle out of the letters. All caps were traditionally used in SQL because text editors and IDEs used to not delineate between SQL commands and classes in Strings. And, unfortunately, a number of designers choose to sacrifice readability for style.

Answer 3

Its a call, I guess, that you would have to make. Since material design, there are lot of places where the upper case has been used where it doesn't feel like its screaming for attention.

If you would want to use uppercase alphabets, better stick to using them in the highest level heading, imo.

Cheers! :)

Answer 4

Use cases worth pointing out for when to use all upper case:

• When targeting young children
• When targeting other near-illiterate audiences
• When pointing out danger or critical components.
  E.g. see exterior labelling on aircraft, as below.
  
  
• And as Ken Mohnkern pointed out: Acronyms should be in all caps.

Answer 5

You use it when it makes sense to use it. There are no rules for this.

It's usually a typographic/aesthetic call based on the context of the content and where it's being used.

It's easier to say where not to use it: Don't use it for all your body copy BECAUSE OF THE YELLING CONNOTATIONS.

However, for headlines, charts, signage, navigation, headers, captions, etc...all can be valid places for using all-caps (or small caps)

Answer 6

It's a matter of style.

There are several ways you can differentiate one thing from another, or one thing from a group of things (which may be what you are aiming for).

It's worth looking into theories such as gestalt theory to get an idea of how this works. This set of blogs is one of my favourite introductions to it https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/03/design-principles-visual-perception-and-the-principles-of-gestalt/

Using all capitals can be a good way to make a word or set of words standout from a wider group of content (hence the association with shouting). There are several other ways you could also do this using attributes such as colour, size, positioning, weight, common fate (maybe achieved with an animation) etc.

As a rule of thumb, you normally only choose one attribute or method to make something standout otherwise it can look like overkill and standout like a sore thumb, unless you want it to stick out like a sore thumb of course. Notice here that italics was used to differentiate "unless" from the rest of the sentence. Different techniques and combination of techniques have different effects and values, and these can change between cultures and contexts. If I really want something to STICK OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB then I can play around with these.

As a side note you may be interested to know that upper-case refers to the positioning of the drawer that typesetters took their type from. The lower case was more accessible and contains the set that was needed more frequently and quicker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Terminology

Answer 7

A quick Google search reveals this:

When is it okay to use all caps? All caps are fine in contexts that don’t involve much reading, such as logos, headings, acronyms, and abbreviations. But when your message involves reading, don’t force users to read words with bad shape contrast. The caps lock key is a key that designers should rarely use.

(Source)

I'm not sure your two assertions at the beginning of the question are accurate. That article, and many others, say that uppercase is hard to read because the outline of every word is rectangular, where lowercase gives every word its own more scannable, glanceable shape.

Answer 8

Only acceptable when you are yelling.

To be more specific, when calling attention to specific words or phrases, or emphasizing a labeled element, for example. Or chewing someone out electronically, let's face it.

Also acceptable for use by older parents for everyday communication, no matter how many times you tell them how to turn off caps lock.