Signs
The capital-letter rule on ADA signs
The raised text must be uppercase. The braille underneath usually must not be — and copying the capitals is the commonest fault on an otherwise careful sign.
Measured on this page: setting STAFF ONLY in capitals costs 4 cells it is not allowed to spend.
Two clauses of the standard pull in opposite directions, and reading only the first is how the mistake happens. 703.2.2 says raised characters shall be uppercase. 703.3.1 says the capital indicator may be used only before the first word of a sentence, a proper noun or name, an individual letter of the alphabet, an initial, or an acronym.
So a door reading STAFF ONLY in raised letters carries no capital indicator at all in the braille beneath it. The two lines are not meant to match character for character; they are meant to say the same thing in two codes with different rules.
| Legend | Set in capitals | As the standard allows | Wasted cells | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STAFF ONLY | 12 | 8 | +4 | Neither word is a sentence, a name, an initial or an acronym. |
| ROOM 101 | 10 | 8 | +2 | The number sign carries the digits either way; the letters take no indicator. |
| EXIT | 6 | 4 | +2 | One word, one fault — and the one most often set in capitals because the raised text is. |
| STAIR A | 8 | 6 | +2 | “A” is an individual letter of the alphabet, which the standard does allow. The indicator stays. |
Those counts come from this site's own Grade 2 engine on every build, so they cannot drift from what the translator produces. They exclude the word space, which is a blank cell on a real sign — the difference between the two columns is the same either way, and the difference is the point.
STAFF ONLY, both ways
Set in capitals, and then as the standard allows. The extra pair of cells at the front of each word is the capital word indicator, dots 6 and 6.
With capital indicators — 12 cells, not permitted here
As the standard allows — 8 cells
When the indicator does belong
The rule is not "never". A proper noun or name keeps its indicator, and so does an individual letter of the alphabet — the standard names both cases. stair A in the table above is the example: the A keeps its indicator in the correct form as well as the incorrect one, because a single letter standing alone is exactly what the clause permits.
It still costs 2 cells to set the whole legend in capitals, and those 2 are all on stair. That is the useful shape of this rule: the indicator is not banned, it is restricted, and the waste comes from the words that were never entitled to one.
Every dimension and rule on this page is from the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, published by the United States Department of Justice, checked against the standard's own text on every build of this site. These are the federal 2010 ADA Standards. A given project may also be under a state or local code with its own requirements — California's Title 24 is the usual example — and where they differ the stricter one generally governs. Check the standard itself before specifying a sign; every clause quoted here is linked to its source.