Blackberry PlayBook Ui Manuallines page 16

UI Guidelines
Best practices
• Use a font size of 21 pixels for normal text and 36 pixels for titles. You can use other font sizes, but avoid using any font
smaller than 15 pixels.
• Use the standard font width for general purposes. The semi-condensed font width should be reserved for places where
there is limited space.
• Use italic for emphasis. For example, you can use italic to emphasize a word, a short phrase, words in a foreign
language that readers might not be familiar with, or titles of things or events.
• Avoid underlining text, except when you are creating a hyperlink within a longer string of text.
• Use a paragraph spacing of 2.5 times the font size. For example, with a font size of 21 pixels, use 53 pixels (21 x 2.5)
paragraph spacing.
Capitalization and punctuation
Consistency is the most important aspect of text capitalization and punctuation. You should pay close attention to the
usage of particular terms, phrases, and abbreviations, and make sure they always appear identical.
Best practices
• Do not use colons to terminate labels. Colons don't add any value when a label is adjacent to its UI component. Instead,
vertically align multiple labels to the left, leaving space between the labels and the related UI components.
• Avoid unnecessary end punctuation. Complete sentences end with a period, but short phrases and lists typically do
not.
• Avoid using all uppercase characters. Uppercase text can make users feel like you are shouting at them.
• Use bold when you refer to an alias or user-defined name for an object. For example, when users delete a bookmark,
the name of the bookmark appears in bold (for example, "Are you sure you want to delete World News?").
• Avoid using ellipses (...) except to indicate truncated text.
• Use title case capitalization for all UI component labels except check boxes, radio buttons, or labels that might read like
a sentence. Capitalize the first word, the last word, and all other words except articles or prepositions with fewer than
four letters.
Word list
Term
abort (v)
alert (n)
16
Comment
Use "end," "quit," or "stop" instead.
Use "notification" instead.
Screen design