Readability/Usability/Quality 4-00 (December 2000) by Elisa Gaviero-Villatte

(Summary of a Mailing List Discussion)

collected by Elisa Gavieiro-Villatte, France The question to the list-subscribers was I am looking for studies dealing with the difference between small letters & capitals. Are small letters easier to read? In France, road signs are written in capitals but it is not the case in the US or Canada. How come? Subsidiary question: Could you tell me how road signs are presented in your country?"

These questions generated many answers. Here is a representative selection of the answers received:

 

What list members replied

In general, the answers show that it’s hardly possible to give a general answer; the answer depends on many parameters, such as

1. the readability, which is the most often mentioned parameter, but there are differences. For example, in Document- and Logo-Design, where the recognition of the logo is of high importance.
2. the purpose of the text: whether it’s in a letter, a book, a handbook (to be read under difficult work conditions, a dictionary (to be used in good reading conditions), a traffic sign (readable during day and night and during high speed traffic), and so on.
3. the culture and tradition, which differ between languages (German uses more capitals than English; American English uses more capitals than British English; and so on.

(1) Readability

Lower case (small) letters are easier to read in continuous text. The eye and brain are more used to this type of reading and can construct the phrase ahead of the point of eye contact.

The reason that the use of upper and lower case letters support easy reading is that they make the text be perceived as a picture instead of reading it letter by letter. Small letters have lines upwards and downwards, plus the capital in the beginning, and that makes the picture. Words in upper case (capitals) have all the same height, so they are psychologically associated with headlines or titles.

Research has shown that our eyes scan the top of the letters' x-heights during the normal reading process, so that this is where the primary identification of each letter takes place. The brain assembles the information and compares it with the shape of the word's outline. ..." (in Stop Stealing Sheep & find out how type works; Erik Spiekermann & E.M. Ginger / Adobee Press Books / Prentice Hall Computer)

An interpretation of the above shows that there is no difference in x-heights and no such outline with CAPITALS, which is why in general, regardless of culture, legibility is reduced. Culture has to do with typeface-preferences. "If a culture uses CAPITALS for street signs, this only means that somebody in that culture did not have any idea of legibility."

(2) Purpose / Genre and (3) Culture and Tradition

The preference for upper- vs lowercase seems to differ greatly from country to country. In fact, the perception of upper- vs lowercase lettering seems to vary, too, which is unfortunately not taken into consideration when dreaming up product names. For example, independent printing companies as well as newspapers and gazettes for years have been the sole rulers for the use of characters. They have created many fonts, some of which are being used today as de facto standards, and have defined typesetting rules according to their respective country.

The genre has an influence (use in highway signs, airport signage, security warnings, for example):

• Different typefaces (the question seems to assume that any typeface-uppercase can be compared to any typeface-lowercase)
• There are different types of use (fast reading at high speed, comfortable reading without external pressures, searching).

• Unfortunately the road signs in Sweden are written in capitals (which are not easy to read), but local signs have started to be written in lowercase text.
• In the UK a capital letter is followed by lower case letters.
• In India most traffic signs are in capital letters below the official graphic symbol, unless there is a long sentence e.g. NO ENTRY (Axles above 3 Tonnes) or PARKING RESERVED (Staff Only).

 

Conclusions

It is hardly possible to provide a general answer to the question whether texts set in capitals are easier or more difficult to read than texts set in lowercase type. Here are a few considerations:

• Most lowercase texts contain some capitals,
• There are differences between languages (German uses more capitals),
• There are cultural differences (American English uses more capitals than British English)
• These considerations are not exhaustive, but they show that it would be difficult to give a generally valid answer to your question.

My thanks to everybody who has contributed. I've received a good handful of replies from tcf-gen, and was glad to see that these questions were of interest to many of us.

 

Proposed bibliographical references:

A famous study is on British road signage. The story of this development has been reported in. Eye 34, 1999, pages 26-36 by Phil Baines. Ole Lund reported in his 1999 PhD-thesis about the validity of the experiments related to the legibility of road signage undertaken by A.W. Christie and K.S. Rutley in 1961. (See: Design, no 151, August 1961, pp 59-60 'on road signs'). The specific typefaces, sign-layout, testing method, colours, etc, make it very difficult to generalize from this specific study.)

The Imprimerie Nationale is publishing periodically a small handbook giving an overview of the common French typesetting rules: 'Lexique des regles typographiques en usage à l'imprimerie nationale', 1990. isbn 2-11-081075-0. (It contains no specific motivations for the use of either uppercase or lowercase. This publication seems to be based on 'common & good practice for book-design'. It is unlikely to be generally applicable.)  

"transline Deutschland - Übersetzungsdienst für technische Übersetzung"