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Microsoft Ignores Usability With All-Caps Menu in Visual Studio

Posted by timothy on from the this-glass-house-sure-is-pretty dept.

mikejuk writes "The recent release of Visual Studio 2012 contained a UI element that few believed could make it into the final version — ALL-CAPS menus. After lots of user criticism and disbelief, Microsoft has moved swiftly to do something about it — by tweaking the typography. '... we explored designs with and without uppercase styling. In the end we determined it to be a very effective way of providing structure and emphasis to the top menu area in Visual Studio 2012.' This must be a new meaning of the word 'structure,' because putting the menu items into all-caps means that they are all the same height. When each menu items starts with a cap then there is structure because you can see the change in height, marking the start of the next menu item. The idea that putting a menu into all caps adds structure is something that is very difficult to see. If you wanted to put structure into a menu, well how about color? Oh wait, I forgot the design department dumped color in favour of the 'everything-is-grey UI.' Developers are the people who invented CamelCase to make sure that the structure of run together words would stand out better — and now we are asked to believe that making a menu all-caps adds structure. I don't think so."

3 of 415 comments (clear)

  1. Relearning... by Atzanteol · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As I understand it road signs (or many of them) in the UK used to be in caps but studies showed that mixed-case was much easier to read (which mattered more as cars got faster) since we're looking for familiar patterns.

    Looks like Microsoft will need to re-learn this lesson...

    --
    "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

    - Charles Darwin
  2. Ribbon menu by avandesande · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How come they haven't created a 'ribbon menu' for Visual Studio? Perhaps this is tacit admission that the Ribbon Menu sucks and is inefficient.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  3. changed in 1965 in the UK after 1958 testing by fantomas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    UK road signs were changed to their current style after testing in 1958, there's a nice summary on the BBC. This new mixed upper and lower case style became legally required on 01 January 1965.

      So yes indeed, typographical designers understood this in the UK quite a while before it was a widely discussed computer interface debate..