This post dates from May 2006. I’ve updated it with my views in 2025.
A month later in June 2006, I wrote another one: Colons at the end of labels – revisited, and in 2025 I updated that one too.
Nobody cares about colons at the end of labels in forms
In 2006, I pointed out that nobody cared about whether or not a label in a form has a colon at the end of it. Since then, I’ve watched hundreds of people filling in forms in all sorts of situations and never once has anyone noticed or remarked on the presence or absence of colons in the labels on the forms.
These days, I’d say ‘Leave them out’. But feel welcome to read on for the slightly more nuanced discussion from 2006.
Let’s consider whether a form label needs a colon
It’s been a long month – lots to do, lots to think about. And what, in the whole wide world, am I going to thrill you with this month?
Well, my dear and loyal readers: it’s forms again. That’s what comes of a column written by a forms obsessive. This time: colons. Or should it be: ‘This time: Colons’? Or is it: ‘This time: Colons?’.
Yes, you are right. You have entrusted your valuable time to someone with a *double obsession*. Forms AND punctuation. Aargh. But stick with me – it gets better.
You are writing captions or labels for fields in forms, for example “Name” or “Date of birth”. Should they be finished with a colon, or not? For example, The New York Times uses colons, The Times (that is, the one based in London) does not.
I have heard several opinions about this
Although this topic seems arcane to me, I have in fact heard a few opinions on this:
- ‘The form looks cleaner without the colons’.
- ‘Colons add to development time, because each one is an extra keystroke’.
- ‘If the caption is outside the box, use a colon. If it is inside the box, don’t’.
- ‘Colons introduce the box and show that the label is distinctive’.
- ‘Do whatever it says in the Chicago Manual of Style‘ (or whatever your preferred grammatical or punctuation guide might be).
- ‘The Microsoft standard is to use colons. So they are essential’ (or whatever your preferred user interface set of guidelines might be).
… or maybe you had some other ones. If you did, then welcome to my world! If you found yourself arguing with some of my answers then you, too, are showing incipient signs of double obsession.
The reality is that I don’t care
Why am I being light-hearted about this problem? Because, dear readers, it doesn’t matter. That’s right. I don’t care! And that’s about a fine detail of forms that I am not caring! Who would have thought it?
The fact is that in over 15 years of testing all sorts of forms – paper, web, application, you name it – NEVER ONCE has any user commented on the presence or absence of colons. They don’t notice them. They don’t care. And so I have learned not to care either.
The solution is to pick one method
So the thing to do is pick one method and stick with it. If you work in a democratic team, then vote. If you prefer to govern by diktat, then get the boss to choose. If you’re not sure how to choose, then flip a coin. But make the choice final. Inconsistency looks messy. Messy is bad – and messy is noticed by users.
And never, ever argue about it again.
A verison of this article first appeared in Usability News, 1 May 2006
image of ‘Newspapers’ by Gary Thomson, creative commons licence
#forms #formsthatwork