montgomeryam
Member
Reged: 04/28/05
Posts: 81
Loc: Michigan
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I've been looking everywhere and I find different answers. What are people's opinions on to bold field labels or to keep them regular text? Would you bold input fields and keep display fields as regular, or be consistent one way or another?
I'm finding mixed reviews with the research based stuff leaning towards to not bold.
Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated!
Thanks - Amy 
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Joe Strazzere
Moderator
Reged: 05/15/00
Posts: 12344
Loc: Massachusetts, USA
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Not bold.
Excess boldage is a distraction.
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- Joe
Visit AllThingsQuality.com to learn more about quality, testing, and QA!
I speak only for me. I do not speak for my employer, nor for anyone else.
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AOQA
Active Member
Reged: 04/12/07
Posts: 1044
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My opinion based purely on personal preference is that words should only be bolded in special circumstances. For example, maybe a field could be bolded if you submitted a form and the data for a field was invalid - then the field heading could be bold.
Bolding all objects of a certain type isn't really "bolding" them because they all have equal weight then. All you've really done is changed the font and removed the option of bolding.
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FarrukhS
Member
Reged: 01/14/06
Posts: 26
Loc: Pakistan
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My opinion is not to bold. Why push the users to think.
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Farrukh
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montgomeryam
Member
Reged: 04/28/05
Posts: 81
Loc: Michigan
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Farshk-
How does bolding 'push the users to think'? That's actually what bolding input field does, is bring their attention to what fields need to have input.
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NaturalBornTester
Newbie
Reged: 02/20/08
Posts: 15
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Hi.
IMHO don't bold.
We do bold only particular information data that are especially important to the user (such as expiring date for a credit card). Not fields.
Best regards,
MR
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brentpaine
Veteran
Reged: 03/09/07
Posts: 3755
Loc: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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Quote:
Not bold.
Excess boldage is a distraction.
This is exactly what bold is designed to do. So think of it objectively and bold things that you want to draw the eye to. Don't bold field text, but headers are fine. Don't bold content, bold labels.
Bold should be used to guide the eye and allow a user to quickly access the information they are looking for on the page. Use it with that in mind.
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Brent
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9 out of 10 people I prove wrong agree that I'm right. The other person is my wife.
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montgomeryam
Member
Reged: 04/28/05
Posts: 81
Loc: Michigan
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Brent - Yes, You hit it on the nose! So are you saying in your opinion it would be okay to bold all field labels?
That was my question....
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Sherilyn
Member
Reged: 05/06/03
Posts: 99
Loc: New Zealand
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Field labels are not that important, don't bold them. Save bold for when you need to bring attention to something important only.
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Ragurc
Member
Reged: 03/02/07
Posts: 53
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Both Brent and Sherilyn comments are meaningful.
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CKlein
Junior Member
Reged: 06/20/01
Posts: 21
Loc: Durham, NC
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Depending on what the page & fields are it may be useful to use bold (or some other formatting) to indicate required fields.
As someone else mentioned it may also be useful feedback if a user incorrectly fills in (or forgets) a field.
Instead of trying to apply a blanket rule, I'd look at it more from a useability perspective & think about what a user would find most useful/helpful.
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C. Klein
CSTE 4157
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LEvans
Newbie
Reged: 09/01/09
Posts: 3
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I agree with Brent & CKlein.
Use bold as a method of helping the user to quickly locate key information, but you don't have to apply a blanket rule for all circumstances.
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CPat
Member
Reged: 12/08/09
Posts: 102
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Flashing text is much more effective than bolding.
*ducks*
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Peter Ruscoe
Veteran
Reged: 03/18/02
Posts: 7686
Loc: Tampa Bay
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Flashing as in blinking? Ugh! Effective for what? Adverts for teeth-whitening compounds?
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venky510
Member
Reged: 01/21/10
Posts: 34
Loc: Gujarat,India
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hi,
hope this will help you ..
Bold and No-Bold font falls under Accessibility testing
Usability is a part of Accessibility.
In W3G AA standard it comes and also it can be located under Bold and Emphasis Tag.
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regards,
venkatesan
http://venkatesan-iyer.blogspot.com
Edited by venky510 (06/22/10 03:29 AM)
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