Use lower and upper case letters appropriately

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Use lower and upper case letters appropriately

Accessibility

The use of appropriate lower and upper case letters makes text much more recognizable, legible, and accessible.

Reason

To some people with learning disabilities, sudden capital letters can make text harder to read.
This is a good example of something that challenges both people with disabilities and those without. Even experienced readers can be thrown off by all capitals.
The Latin alphabet is not everyone’s first writing system, and words are easier to read in familiar forms. All caps provide fewer visual cues than lower case—for example, HOLIEST versus holiest.

This can be seen in this image:

Two renderings of the word "square" show that in lower case the word is more "bumpy", and so easier to read.

Best practice

Use all capitalized for items such as acronyms (NATO), Abbreviations (C.B.C.), or products/services that are branded with upper case only.

Example of less accessible practices

The use of upper case to make a point – you can simply use bolded text instead where necessary
Sudden change to all caps when elsewhere they were sentence or title case, for example on a page like this:

Two paragraphs of text with sub-headings, but with one in title case while the second is in all caps for no obvious reason.

The prolonged use of all caps anywhere. Not only is it less accessible, it really FEELS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING AT ME. For example, here is a pice of writing from the first setion of this page:

TO SOME PEOPLE WITH A LEARNING DISABILITY WHO WOULD ORDINARILY STILL FIND IT EASY TO READ A PIECE OF TEXT, IT IS CONFUSING TO HAVE CAPITAL LETTERS SUDDENLY IN THE PLACE OF SENTENCE CASE. WE DISCUSS THIS IN THE ACCESSIBILITY BANK ENTRY ABOUT… etc.

and some words maybe read by a screen reader as an acronym.

Additional benefits

Usability: A page with text not marred by inappropriate use of upper case lettering will hold the attention of users.
SEO: Use of correct type of lettering for the appropriate words will enable the page to be ranked more highly. For example, if the text has the word JET in all capitals, it might be harder to discern if the page is about the popular Japanese Exchange and Teaching program, or the type of engine used on planes.
Marketing: As a university, we say a lot about ourselves and our standards if text is rendered in an appropriate manner.

What WCAG says

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From WCAG:

“Text in all capital letters is more difficult to read for most people, with and without disabilities.”