Re: [Usability] capitalization question for gnu solfege

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 3 Jun 2009, at 20:32, Tom Cato Amundsen wrote:

> Do I understand it correctly that "Header capitalization" and
> "Sentence capitalization" as described in the HIG look "normal" to
> (american) english speaking people, so that using "Sentence
> capitalization" on a command button will look bad? Or at least that
> "Header capitalization" looks more professional or correct in some
> way?

The latter, really. Using sentence capitalization on a command button  
won't make it any harder to use or understand in any way, but it will  
look a little odd -- it's just a convention that has existed on pretty  
much every desktop GUI I've used for the past 20 years.

> I have uploaded 3 screenshots to http://tcamundsen.net.
>
> dump-1 and dump-2: Should the bold face headings be "Header
> capitalization"? What about the links?

The bold face headings are really acting as group/frame labels, which  
the HIG says should have header capitalization.

The HIG says that "Webpage titles and navigational elements" should  
also be header capitalization.  However, embedding hyperlinks in  
dialog boxes wasn't really common when the HIG was written, so in this  
case I would say "use whatever capitalization style is used in the  
title of the page or window that you're linking to".  (In much the  
same way that a menu item's capitalization should normally match the  
title of the dialog box it opens.)

> dump-3, is the following correct?
> * window manager frame: change to "Solfege - Fourths and Fifths"
> * change heading to "Identify the Interval"
> * change the buttons to "New Interval" and "Give Up"

Yes, that would be correct.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            OpenSolaris Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems