My team has an editable numeric text field in an application. The numbers have a wide dynamic range (e.g. 0.000000421
and 1360000
are both possible) so computerized scientific notation is something we want to support.
Is it clearer to use lowercase or uppercase e
for displaying scientific notation? (or does it not matter)
4.21e-7
1.36e6
vs
4.21E-7
1.36E6
The scenario I am most concerned about is a new user who looks at a screen and sees a number in scientific notation. Our existing version of software had a field that said 2E4
and this immediately jumped out to me as a potential problem. (not that 2e4
is much better, but I want to see numbers that are displayed in such a way as to make them most clear that they are in scientific notation, and even a slight increase in readability would be helpful. Because they are editable, the mathematical 1.36 × 106 is not an option.)
1e6
is slightly better than1E6
because the lowercasee
stands out because of its different height than numbers.