Terminal punctuation in the UI

Ensure correct terminal punctuation in UI text by using periods for complete sentences, question marks for questions, and avoiding exclamation marks. Use punctuation consistently across mixed sentence types.

Terminal punctuation is punctuation that comes after a sentence or phrase. Follow these best practices to punctuate UI text correctly:

  • Use a period at the end of complete sentences.
  • If a word or phrase is meant to be read as a question, use a question mark.
  • Don't use exclamation marks.
  • When writing single, short, descriptive phrases that are not complete sentences, don't use terminal punctuation.
  • If a UI element requires more than 1 phrase of description, write them as sentences and use the appropriate punctuation to distinguish them from one another.
  • If a single view, page, or dialog box contains descriptive text that uses both full sentences and fragments, try rewriting the full sentences into fragments. If it isn't possible to rewrite the full sentences into fragments, use terminal punctuation for all of the text.

For more punctuation guidelines, see Punctuation and symbols.

Examples

See the following examples of correct and incorrect terminal punctuation:

"" Do this "" Don't do this
The search head removes the alias field from the event. The search head removes the alias field from the event
Search results Search results.
The search processed 100,000 events. This process took less than 1 minute. The search processed 100,000 events, this process took less than 1 minute.
What is the average query response time? What is the average query response time
The update includes enhanced security features. The update includes enhanced security features!