Capitalizing...research need

[Erica Bruce <ericalbruce -at- gmail -dot- com>]

All-
I am a documentation specialist for a government contractor and in
charge of setting standards (b/c right now, we sort of do/sort of
don't have consistency amongst our contract documents.) One thing that
has come under some discussion with the writers as of late is as
follows....

For notating tab titles that appear on a computer screen, the current
standard is to capitalize the name. For example, if a tab window is
titled "Immigration Worksheet Tab," it's supposed to be displayed in
the document as "IMMIGRATION WORKSHEET TAB." Some good points have
been raised about how in the online world, caps indicate shouting,
which is true. Most other items that appear on the computer screen are
to be bolded in our documentation. Too much of any emphatic style is a
bad thing, that's true too, but how to differentiate?

Btw, our docs are designed for hardcopy. There is an online help
version that's basically the hardcopy transferred into Robohelp,

I have the opportunity to counter this capitalization-standard but
what I need is backup, like research or "many in the industry are
doing it this way" sort of material to move forward. With that in
mind, I thought I'd start here.

So...where do you stand on anything that's showing on a screen being
bolded? How are folks handling that distinction for the user if that's
not how you're doing it, and how did your group come to this decision?
At the very least, does anyone have handy some research that points to
one way over another?

Feel free to email me off-list and I'll compile and repost if that's
easier. Thanks.

____________________________________________
Erica L. Bruce
Technical Writer/Documentation Specialist II

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