The problem with ALL CAPS

All caps were widely used in print headlines until the 1950s as a way to make text stand out and to give it emphasis. As recently as the early 1980s, word processors didn’t even have lower case characters. Personal computer screens of the time couldn’t display descenders on the lower-case letters g, p, q and y, so they only used the upper-case set. Everything was ‘shouted’.

Unfortunately, while a paragraph of all capitals might stand out, it’s also harder to read. That’s why print headlines don’t tend to use them now. Look at your newspaper. Words in all caps are more difficult for the brain to process. We tend to use the top half of a letter to work out what it is. Consequently, lower case letters are easier to discern, allowing us to read those letters as units which boosts reading speed and comprehension. Uppercase letters are processed letter by letter, so are harder to read, take a lot longer and become much more of a task.

Capitals also take up one-third more space than lower case, so not only is the act of trying to read them much harder but it seems even worse because there is much more to read.