INTERNAL STYLE GUIDE
OUR VOICE
Our voice expresses our personality. It is the combination of what we want to convey, and how we want users to feel about their experience with our products.
We want our writing to come across as:
01 / RELIABLE
We want our customers to know they can trust us to get the job done. We do what we say we will do, and don't make promises we can't keep.
02 / CLEAR
Our writing should be concise and easy to understand.
03 / COLLABORATIVE
We’re dedicated to conversational, confidence-building language. We share a common commitment with our customers to keep communities safe.
04 / INSPIRING
What we do is closely related to why our users chose their jobs in the first place, and we want to remind our users of this.
OUR PRODUCT TONE
Our voice always stays the same, but our tone will change based on what we are saying and who we are saying it to.
Within our products, our tone should be:
CONCISE
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Use as few words as possible (but don't cut out necessary information). If it doesn't help the user - cut it.
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Focus on user goals; make sure that you create content for an actual use case.
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Avoid large blocks of text and long, complex sentences.
CONVERSATIONAL
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Use natural, conversational language with a friendly, confidence-building tone.
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Contractions are acceptable when they improve flow.
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Write from the user’s perspective to help them accomplish tasks.
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Avoid developer-focused terminology.
DIRECT
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Say exactly what you mean, directly and clearly.​
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Use plain English. Avoid buzzwords, jargon, figures of speech and words you wouldn't say in person.
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Refer to user interface elements by name.​
SPELLING & GRAMMAR
We follow American spelling and grammar rules.
ERROR MESSAGES
GREAT MICROCOPY FROM AROUND THE WEB
You can never go wrong thanking your users.
Clear and concise - and gets the point across without blame.
A long-form error message that takes responsibility for the problem and offers multiple work-arounds.
You can never go wrong thanking your users.
👻 AND SOME LESS THAN GREAT ONES 👻
Awkward and condescending, and to what purpose?
There's some serious blame/shaming going on here!
They managed not to blame the user straight out, but this probably wasn't the reaction they were going for ;)
Awkward and condescending, and to what purpose?