by Larry Harper
(EDITOR’S NOTE: WE RECEIVED THIS PROVOCATIVE ARTICLE VIA E-MAIL! WE ARE CURIOUS: WHAT DO YOU LOW-VISION READERS THINK ABOUT HARPER’S SUGGESTION?)
While it’s true, in terms of legibility, that size isn’t all that matters, for many low-vision readers, capital letters are easier to see. In fact, with any point-size text, the lowercase letters are only about two-thirds the height of the uppercase letters. This means in a 14-point document the lowercase letters are less than 10-point. Plus, lowercase letters comprise over 90 percent of the content of standard documents.
In addition, uppercase letters are well-formed in comparison to lowercase letters. And only uppercase letters are used in the familiar Snellen eye test chart for that very reason — i.e., big “E” instead of little “e.”
The bottom line is all-caps text offers greater legibility for low-vision readers by standing tall! In this case, size matters!