Caps Lock: Redefined
Ui/Ux
Jul 19, 2024
Scope
Keyboards have a dedicated built in Caps Lock button. But the functionality of this button seems very limited. The overall user experience of using this button would have been so much better if a few functionalities were added. Through this case study I would like to share some observations and my proposed solutions.
About
Caps Lock is a button on a computer keyboard that causes all letters of bicameral scripts to be generated in capital letters. It is a toggle key: each press reverses the previous action. Some keyboards also implement a light to give visual feedback about whether it is on or off.
Painpoints
Difficult for changing the case of letters while formatting text.
Users often start typing without realising that the Caps lock is in active state.
Users cannot change the case of the text once its typed without going to the text menus. And that too, different softwares have different options. It's even worse if you have typed this on an email or on Whatsapp web.
Most user usually delete what's already written and start over.
Softwares do allow changing the case of texts post typing. I have compared the process of changing the case of texts in Figma and Adobe Illustrator below.
Even though these are just 2 or 3 Step processes, I believe that we could make it more intuitive and efficient if we just incorporate these functionalities into the caps lock button.
Solution
The current user flow that users follow while typing is shown below.
Users usually first articulate what they are about to type and if the content is a title or something that is all caps, then they use the caps lock button else they use the shift key for the occasional capital letters.
There’s rarely a good reason to ever use the caps lock key. Shift usually suffices when you need to capitalize a letter here or there.
The problem arises when users start typing without realising that the caps lock is active. In the current scenario there is no provision to edit the case of the text post typing. While some softwares like Figma & Adobe Illustrator do allow editing the case after typing. But on most other times, this is not possible. For example, if a user encounters this problem while composing an email, he/she has no other option but to delete what is already written and retype it all over again. Hence the best solution is to add post editing capability to the caps lock button by which this would be a global feature and will be available through out the OS.
But implementing this is a challenge because the caps lock button is a toggle key, i.e it has an active state and a passive state which is indicated by a light(visual signifier). So in order to address this issue, we have modify the current working principle of the caps lock button. When a user presses the caps lock button, the system checks weather any text is selected on the screen. If any text is selected, pressing the caps lock button toggles the case of the text from lowercase to uppercase to sentence case and back to lowercase. This cycle continues. In this way the user can change the case of the text even after typing. But if no text is selected , then the caps lock button function in the traditional manner, i.e, all text written after will be in capital letters.
This is the new user flow. As you can see, the user need not worry about the case of the text beforehand as they can now change it even after typing it.
Ans this is a demonstration of the working the updated caps lock button.
Check out the video below where I explain everything in detail .
Scope
Keyboards have a dedicated built in Caps Lock button. But the functionality of this button seems very limited. The overall user experience of using this button would have been so much better if a few functionalities were added. Through this case study I would like to share some observations and my proposed solutions.
About
Caps Lock is a button on a computer keyboard that causes all letters of bicameral scripts to be generated in capital letters. It is a toggle key: each press reverses the previous action. Some keyboards also implement a light to give visual feedback about whether it is on or off.
Painpoints
Difficult for changing the case of letters while formatting text.
Users often start typing without realising that the Caps lock is in active state.
Users cannot change the case of the text once its typed without going to the text menus. And that too, different softwares have different options. It's even worse if you have typed this on an email or on Whatsapp web.
Most user usually delete what's already written and start over.
Softwares do allow changing the case of texts post typing. I have compared the process of changing the case of texts in Figma and Adobe Illustrator below.
Even though these are just 2 or 3 Step processes, I believe that we could make it more intuitive and efficient if we just incorporate these functionalities into the caps lock button.
Solution
The current user flow that users follow while typing is shown below.
Users usually first articulate what they are about to type and if the content is a title or something that is all caps, then they use the caps lock button else they use the shift key for the occasional capital letters.
There’s rarely a good reason to ever use the caps lock key. Shift usually suffices when you need to capitalize a letter here or there.
The problem arises when users start typing without realising that the caps lock is active. In the current scenario there is no provision to edit the case of the text post typing. While some softwares like Figma & Adobe Illustrator do allow editing the case after typing. But on most other times, this is not possible. For example, if a user encounters this problem while composing an email, he/she has no other option but to delete what is already written and retype it all over again. Hence the best solution is to add post editing capability to the caps lock button by which this would be a global feature and will be available through out the OS.
But implementing this is a challenge because the caps lock button is a toggle key, i.e it has an active state and a passive state which is indicated by a light(visual signifier). So in order to address this issue, we have modify the current working principle of the caps lock button. When a user presses the caps lock button, the system checks weather any text is selected on the screen. If any text is selected, pressing the caps lock button toggles the case of the text from lowercase to uppercase to sentence case and back to lowercase. This cycle continues. In this way the user can change the case of the text even after typing. But if no text is selected , then the caps lock button function in the traditional manner, i.e, all text written after will be in capital letters.
This is the new user flow. As you can see, the user need not worry about the case of the text beforehand as they can now change it even after typing it.
Ans this is a demonstration of the working the updated caps lock button.
Check out the video below where I explain everything in detail .
