Ampersands
Recommendations
Use the word 'and' instead of the ampersand sign, '&', unless it is an academic reference, a company’s name as it appears on the Companies House register or when referring to a logo image, for example M&S.
Usability evidence
GOV.UK Style Guide A to Z UK Government website
"What is preferred to use in alt text “&” or “&” for screenreader users?", 2010
'What Character Was Removed From The Alphabet?' 2011
Etymonline entry on ampersand, 2017
'Punctuation & Grammar: Bridging the Gap Between UX and Copywriting' 2017
'Analyzing the Ampersand: When to use “and” versus “&” in UX writing.' 2018
Ampersands, Oxford English Dictionary. Needs subscription
In Slack, Pete said:
Pete AM
we’ve got a rule at our uni:
And/&/with
With regard to course titles, and, &, and with are very separate terms and must not be used interchangeably.
And
Use and where the two discrete degree subjects are considered to have equal weight in the course. This is a joint degree.
MA (Hons) History and Politics
With
If the degree name contains with, the first mentioned subject is primary, with subsequent subjects having significant but lesser focus.
MA (Hons) Economics with French
Ampersand
An ampersand (&) is used in place of and in a single named degree.
MSc Accounting & Finance
At my HE institution, our guide says:
"Only use ampersands in navigation (ie side menus) to help shorten titles. Use 'and' in page titles and all other text."
This is because of character limits that some of our navigation has. We've also found the use of special characters in some database feeds cause problems, so we don't use ampersands in course titles.
Personally, using an ampersand only saves two characters of text and I find them harder to scan.
If the guidelines are to be for any website then is the companies house rule too restrictive? Should the definition be expanded to include any organisation or group that uses them in their name. For instance would we ditch the ampersand on Crosby, Stills & Nash if they have used it consistently?
We use ampersands to make it clear when names stop and start for Schools, Colleges, Programmes and Courses e.g. MSc English Language & Linguistics. It means you can make it a bit clearer if you're referring to two programmes in one sentence e.g. MSC English Language & Linguistics and MLitt Film & Television Studies.
The style guide puts it as: "Use initial capitals and ampersands (&) in the titles of colleges, schools, programmes, and courses to show information is linked – College of Science & Engineering, School of Physics & Astronomy."
I've found it hard adjusting to ampersands being OK to use having tried to phase them out of my own writing as I thought it created accessibility issues - would be interested to know if anyone has any research on this. Anecdotally, in a previous role, I once removed ampersands from a client's navigation text and was told by the client (who had dyslexia) that she actually found ampersands easy to spot and understand.
I wonder if the problem with multiple course titles could be solved with the always controversial Oxford comma? That would make it: MSC English Language and Linguistics, and MLitt Film and Television Studies.
Not sure if it feels right.
This article is a bit old now, so might not still be accurate but puts the ampersand on the safe list of characters that screen readers can cope with - https://www.deque.com/blog/dont-screen-readers-read-whats-screen-part-1-punctuation-typographic-symbols/
A first test for something being readable is whether or not it is accessible - if screen readers and other assistive technology can't cope with a point of punctuation, does have a place in our list?
The other side of this is how well search engines can cope with the ampersand - there are plenty of posts about search engines having trouble with ampersands because they are special characters, but these seem to be from a few years back in the main. Is this a non-problem now?
Karl, agree completely that if screen readers and other assistive tech can't cope with a point of punctuation it is automatically unreadable. However, I believe this wiki is about collecting for the don'ts as well as the dos so we need to keep these on the list but add evidence for why not to use them.
I always thought ampersands didn't get read out as "and" by screen reading software and have been avoiding them and recommending avoiding them for that reason. So the Deque article surprised me. But it is more recent than the Stack Overflow discussion I found which suggests "&" needs to be coded as & in XHTML and if it isn't it won't be read out as "and" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2598856/what-is-prefered-to-use-in-alt-text-or-amp-for-screenreader-users
Sarah, it would be really great if we could get RNIB involved in this wiki… I tagged them on twitter for their feedback on another screen reader issue, they advised me to contact the tech team by email, that inbox address is: ku.gro.binr|lft#ku.gro.binr|lft Or other accessibility experts? At Parkinson's we accessibility-audited the site with The Shaw Trust who were ace.
These are all great points. I'll contact ku.gro.binr|lft#ku.gro.binr|lft. This particular one stops being the main focus on Tues at 7pm but we can add more if we get it. Perhaps we will finalise all details in Oct, in London when we meet (online or in person!).
Further to L C Simpson's comment, ampersands can corrupt to '&' when content is shared, mailed,downloaded or represented in search results. So a company like M&S could appear as M&S. Not so great for accurate search results.
I always avoid using “&” unless it is part of a company or product name (for example AT&T).
University of Toronto Faculty of Arts & Science encourages ampersand use:
Ampersands are acceptable (and save space!) for departments with “and” in their name i.e., Near & Middle East Studies; Astronomy & Astrophysics. Source
Glad I studied at the rival school. :D
In fairness, using the ampersand does save characters and makes content shorter, clearer, more direct. I'd be more inclined to use it in page titles and menu items.