Designing Text
This topic contains guidelines and best practices for designing good user interface text.
Guidelines for writing user interface text
Work on text early
Working with users to name objects correctly early in the process enables you to name things consistently throughout your architecture, user interface, and documentation. Late terminology changes are often not carried through at all levels, which can lead to difficulties in both user support and long-term maintenance.
Design your text for scanning
Users do not read user interface text thoroughly, they scan it. Design the user interface, so that your users can find the content they are looking for at a glance.
Use the inverted pyramid
Start with the conclusion. Get right to the point and then progressively fill in more detail. This allows readers to stop reading at any point and still understand the essential information. You can use a Help link to present the rest of the information.
Links
When necessary, provide links to Help content for more information.
Names and labels
Choose object names and labels that clearly communicate and differentiate what the object does.
Eliminate redundancy
Do not avoid important text, be explicit wherever necessary but do not be redundant and do not explain the obvious. If multiple elements across the page use the same word, consider grouping them together or renaming some if they do not represent the same concept.
Avoid wordiness
Even if text is not redundant, it can be too wordy. If you have too much text, the reader cannot scan easily and they will choose their next step in the user interface without reading. Craft your text to make every word count.
Punctuation
Periods: Do not put periods at the end of control labels or main instructions. Place at the end of supplemental instructions, supplemental explanations, or any other static text that forms a complete sentence.
Question marks: Place at the end of all questions. Unlike periods, question marks are used for all types of text.
Exclamation points: Avoid using exclamation points.
Ellipses: Ellipses (...) mean incompleteness. Use ellipsis after a command name if a command needs additional information. Do not use an ellipsis just because a command displays another window, only use when additional information is required. For data, ellipsis indicates that text is truncated.
Capitalization
Use title-style capitalization for titles, for example, Sales Order, Post and Print, Customer Details, and Sales List. This applies to window titles, page titles, names of actions, titles in all types of header bars and field groups.
Use sentence-style capitalization for all other user interface elements, for example, Click here to create a new note.
Globalization and localization
Globalization means to create documents or products that are usable in any country, region, or culture. Localization means to adapt documents or products for use in a locale other than the country/region of origin. Consider globalization and localization when you write user interface text. Your program may be translated into other languages and used in cultures very different from your own.
For controls with variable contents, such as list views and tree views, choose a width that is appropriate for the longest valid data.
Include enough space in the user interface elements for an additional 30 percent (up to 200 percent for shorter text) for any text (but not numbers) that will be localized. Translation from one language to another often changes line length of text.
Do not compose strings from substrings at run time. Instead, use complete sentences so that there is no ambiguity for the translator.