Inconsistencies in Modal Title Text, Capitalization, and Punctuation

[laurenrevere]

Modal title text is inconsistent across the site.

There are no formal rules for this yet. I propose that modal headings be in title case and only include punctuation if they are questions.

I still have questions about what type of text modal headings should have.

• Should there ever be long sentences such as "This wiki page has been deleted", or should it just say "Wiki Deleted"?
• When should we use text describing the action and when should the text read "Warning"?
• How would one explain such rules?

[laurenrevere]

Any opinions @caileyfitz, @GaryKriebel, @lbanner?

[GaryKriebel]

@caneruguz is there any sort of industry standard for this?

[lbanner]

What @GaryKriebel asks ^^ .... for my part, I'd suggest brief sentence form, as much text needed for clarity but no more, sentence cap only - unless title, no punctuation but for "?"

[caneruguz]

@GaryKriebel this is not an area I'm very knowledeable about and I think it's more in the realm of a "Style Guide" for literary/editorial issues. We need some research into this, which I think @geeksnglitter can do for us(?)

[laurenrevere]

Well Apple uses title case for titles and question marks at the end only if it's a question - as proposed. https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/Alerts.html (And while not a place to look for inspiration, Microsoft does the same - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb158706.aspx).

While not explicitly stated, Google seems to have most of its warning titles in sentence case: https://www.google.com/design/spec/components/dialogs.html.

I can look into this further if desired.

[GaryKriebel]

I think those are enough to guide us.

[caileyfitz]

@natasharichter may also have opinions on this. I would say that we should default to what the bigger sites are doing. I like the brief text as modal titles.

[lbanner]

Good finds @geeksnglitter --- I prefer sentence case, but would not at all feel badly about following Apple's lead : )

[laurenrevere]

I accidentally misrepresented apple. Here is the real policy - for iOS at least.

So all three guides are different.

I think it may be easier to go the sentence case all the time route - that way there isn't as much thinking involved.

Messages could be worded with a preference for sentence fragments and questions.