A piece of software that I'm updating uses some incredibly long labels, but due to the nature of the software (taxes and payroll) this seems unavoidable at times. On some pages, maybe 50% of the labels look like this in the current implementation:
To make this easier on the eyes, I'm considering whether I should phrase these long labels as questions:
But this makes the label somewhat harder to scan, and the label has been like this for about 10 years so many users are familiar with it as is.
Another option would be to present these options as a list of checkboxes, which might work better when there are a number of shorter options on the same page that cannot be worded as a question:
I'm curious how others have handled this and if there is a better solution. For the application that I'm working on, most of these options are boolean but there are others that may involve a dropdown or some other control. The layouts begin to look particularly cluttered and difficult to read when there are a mixture of different controls in conjunction with long labels. The application is also for trained expert users within this industry.