7 Capitalization (EN)

We agreed to use sentence case when writing for Flix.

Sentence case

What are the rules of sentence case capitalisation?

In sentence case, you lowercase most words in a title or heading. Capitalize only the following words:

• the first word of the title or heading
• the first word of a subtitle
• the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading
• nouns followed by numerals or letters (e.g. "on Day 2 of Experiment 4", "Figure 2 and Table 3 present")
• proper nouns and names (such as the names of racial/ethnic groups or historical figures)

When to use sentence case guidelines?

• When you write a title or a headline
• When you write a description
• When you create copy for a button, CTA
• When you create a link text
• When you use a feature name in your copy
• When you create a longer piece of content, for marketing or general knowledge purposes e.g. FAQ pages, landing pages content

How to capitalise feature names?

• Feature names like "Track your Trip" or "Manage My Booking" should be capitalised since it's a proper noun and a brand name, in a sense
• Do not capitalise any generic service that Flix offers. For example, "live updates on your trip" should not be capitalised since it's a service we offer and not a feature with a specific name to it

How to use ALL CAPS?

• ALL CAPS should be used only when it's dictated by a design system or design language (e.g. material design for Android)
• You can use All CAPS to signal a change in the content like a label "NEW" or "EDITED"
• Don't use ALL CAPS unnecessarily just to attract attention. "It’s like screaming, and it may present additional difficulty for users with dyslexia and other reading challenges or vision impairments". Intuit content design system
• Use CSS to make text capitalized instead of plain text

Sentence case vs. Title case

Sentence case

In sentence case, lowercase most words in a title or heading. Capitalize only the following words:

• the first word of the title or heading
• the first word of a subtitle
• the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading
• nouns followed by numerals or letters
• proper nouns (such as the names of racial or ethnic groups)

Title case

In title case, capitalize the following words in a title or heading:

• the first word of the title or heading, even if it is a minor word such as "The" or "A"
• the first word of a subtitle
• the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading
• major words, including the second part of hyphenated major words (e.g., "Self-Report," not "Self-report")
• words of four letters or more (e.g., "With," "Between," "From")

Lowercase only minor words that are three letters or fewer in a title or heading (except the first word in a title or subtitle or the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading):

• short conjunctions (e.g., "and," "as," "but," "for," "if," "nor," "or," "so," "yet")
• articles ("a," "an," "the")
• short prepositions (e.g., "as," "at," "by," "for," "in," "of," "off," "on," "per," "to," "up," "via")

Additional guidelines for general content

• Avoid italics in the content, italics and bold in general content (landing pages, Marketing content)

Italics is, in general, not an accessible choice of highlighting the information. It's hard to read, especially, for people with dyslexia and visual impairments. If possible, bold should also be avoided if you're designing for screen reader compliance.

Bold tag, <b>, and the italic tag, <i>, are listed as a WCAG compliance Level A error because most screen readers will NOT announce these changes to the screen reader user. If you're creating content that will probably be read with a screen reader, use the Strong tag, <strong>, and the Emphasis tag, <em>. These tags "are considered Semantic Markup that allows for added meaning to your content. It serves as an indication to a screen reader of how something should be understood". (More on this topic in this article).

https://contentdesign.intuit.com/style/formatting/#capitalization
https://spectrum.adobe.com/page/grammar-and-mechanics/#Capitalization