Microsoft Ignores Usability With All-Caps Menu in Visual Studio

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mikejuk writes "The recent release of Visual Studio 2012 contained a UI element that few believed could make it into the final version &mdash; ALL-CAPS menus. After lots of user criticism and disbelief, Microsoft has moved swiftly to do something about it &mdash; 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 &mdash; and now we are asked to believe that making a menu all-caps adds structure. I don't think so."

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