Font tussle -- bolding bolding everywhere

[Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>]

   Hi, all.

   My company's UIs use sentence style capitalization. So, the UI controls
   for setting the reference level are labeled

   Ref. level
   Ref. level down
   Ref. level up

   I refer to these controls in text by capping each term: "The vial
   controls are Ref. Level, Ref. Level Up, and Ref. Level Down."

   I reserve bolding for those UI items that I am telling the user to act
   on directly (select, tap, click, and so on.) But I know one of my
   reviewers is going to come back to me with "make these bold so people
   know they're control names" or even just "make these bold so they stand
   out."

   I can explain about the caps setting the names off, I can explain about
   reserving bold for actions, but if my questioner is persistent, I need
   a solid resource to explain why it's bad to have bold type popping up
   all over the page.  Am I, in fact, simply going on my personal hunch
   that overapplied bolding is distracting on the page and probably
   reduces readability?  Have I simply made up these claims?

   I just searched for "do not overuse bold text" and found a few
   articles, but they are very general. They go so far as to say "Bold
   less instead of more." Well, thanks.

   Are there any actual readability tests or other source of data
   regarding the effectiveness of varying amounts of bolding on a page? By
   the way, translation costs are not even a factor, since our
   translator's software recognizes and preserves the bolding codes. They
   don't have to be inserted manually.

   Thanks for all suggestions.

   --Nancy

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