Similar to punctuation, formatting text can have a huge impact on the way people interpret our words. For example, you can use bold text as a simple tool for emphasis in a message, or you can use it to guide a person's eyes around the UI so they instinctively know what is important.
Basics
- Bold text is often used to improve scannability in the UI and emphasize specific words in longer texts.
- Italics are often used for contextual hint text under input elements and can convey either a focused tone or a hushed tone to the text.
- Underlined text in UI can easily be interpreted as a link, so be careful when using the format for a different purpose. Consider finding an alternative solution to underlined words that will not function as links.
Code
When presenting code snippets to customers, format them with the Menlo monospace font.
var example = 'This is an example string in a monospace font!';Lists
- Capitalize the first letter of each list item.
- For general lists of information, use unordered (bullet) lists.
- For lists with specific steps, use an ordered (number) list.