Uppercase in computer records–please no!

From time to time you encounter systems where the company style is to capitalise names in the system. I know of users who might as well glue the caps-lock on!

If faced with the, we have always done it this way problem, fight it. Excuses come out like its for users with vision problems (there are magnifiers and system tools to help there), improves clarity for parcels going overseas to other cultures (I doubt it makes much difference in compter type, maybe for hand written?), etc.

Capitalisation is a lossy process

In the context of company names, street names, people names, the capitalisation can be important as it conveys information that is lost if it is presented in entirely uppercase. 
examples:

• McKenzie vs MCKENZIE
• O'Donnell vs O'DONNEL
• MacBain VS MACBAIN

There are many others and in other cultures where the capitalisation conveys information that cannot be recovered again if lose, by the use of automated processing.

Mail Merge

It makes it look bad for mail merges later too

"Dear Mr ODONNEL

Thank you for your order."

Just looks bad.

Thus don’t shout at your customers with capitals, use your SHIFT keys!