Naming convention for attributes/functions/menus

Question

In programming there are ex. PascalCase and CamelCase and more conventions.

In the SIGCHI Conference Proceedings Format subsections and sub-subsections starts with initial letters capitalized, but a word like the or of is not capitalized unless it is the first word of the heading.

Is there a naming convention for attributes, functions and menus displayed to the user, to maximize usability? From what I've seen so far, large sites use the name conventions of SIGCHI.

I've attached two pictures. First picture is an original picture of a Facebook menu, the second is an altered version.

Answer 1

A good example is the sub-section Style– Writing / Capitalization & punctuation from Material Design Blog.

Use sentence-style caps

Use sentence-style caps for all titles, headings, labels, menu items – any place that considered for “Title-Style Caps.”

Avoid capitalizing all letters except where the material spec requires them, such as the Button style.

Only capitalize product names when referring to a product as a product. Don’t capitalize the things you create or work with when using that product.

Answer 2

The examples you've shown are in:

1. Title Case
2. Sentence case

In Title Case, each of the principal words are capitalized but conjunctions, articles and prepositions are left as is.

Eg "Masters of Ceremony"

In Sentence case only the first letter is capitalized.

I find that Title Case works best for the major elements of a screen layout, menus, buttons, etc. However there are apps that find sentence case to "feel more casual". What is likely more important is to stick to one style, having a mix will look weird.

PS PascalCase and CamelCase are programming terms referring to capitalization styles of class and variable naming. In PascalCase all words are concatenated and the first letter of each word is capitalized, CamelCase is the same, but the very first letter remains lowercase.

Eg

class JavaClassesAreInPascalCase(){
  String variablesAreInCamelCase;
}

Answer 3

Some similar questions have been asked about which capitalization rule to follow:

• Are there guidelines for when to use UPPERCASE, Capitalize Each Word, or Only the first letter?
• What are some reference works for capitalization in UI text?

But they do not specifically target "attributes/functions/menus". Such a rule (if it does exist) is not broadly spread, so my advice is to decide for your specific context.

I recomend Title Case as it ease the reading of important words in short labels that can be found in "attributes/functions/menus".

If your labels are long, then a Sentence case would be more appropriate.