Designing Voice and Tone In UX Writing

Voice is your personality, and tone is your attitude.
✅ Voice never changes, but tone adapts to the situation.
✅ It changes depending on user’s emotional state.

✅ Unpack your brand voice and the tones it can take.
✅ E.g. passionate → enthusiastic, confident, playful.
✅ Arrange your user’s emotional states on a tone scale.
✅ E.g. pleased, satisfied, neutral, confused, angry.
✅ Set writing guidelines for each part of the scale.

✅ Then, find key points and spikes in your user journeys.
✅ You’ll need to find the right tone of voice for each.
✅ Choose dimensions that represent your tone map.
✅ E.g. motivational <-> supportive, concise <-> detailed.
✅ Plot key events of the user journey onto the map.

When users feel neutral, be warm, relatable and get to the point. When users are satisfied, sound confident, enthusiastic, perhaps even playful. But when they are confused, stay helpful, concise, honest and direct.

Always test your copy. Ask users to underline what’s been helpful for them and circle what hasn’t. Word length matters: the shortest version will usually work best. And never (ever!) include exclamation marks in your error messages

https://garden.zendesk.com/content/voice-and-tone

✤ Useful resources on UX writing:

UX Language: https://lnkd.in/e9h5fmf5
Plain Language Guidelines: https://lnkd.in/eV2sxSyJ
Bias-Free Language: https://lnkd.in/eq24u6nG
Human-centric microcopy: https://lnkd.in/eCG_HUdp
Language, Please: https://lnkd.in/eWkn-v8U
Readability Guidelines: https://lnkd.in/e8qAhEUV

Also highly recommended: Voice and Tone For Interfaces (PDF, Presentation), by Michael Metts, with plenty of practical advice and thought-provoking ideas (attached).
https://speakerdeck.com/mjmetts/voice-and-tone-for-interfaces?slide=76

As Michael Metts noted, it’s not a question of whether your product has a voice or changes its tone. It’s a question of how intentional you are about it. And being intentional can make a world of a difference when things turn in unexpected ways.

✤ Voice and Tone in Design Systems

Atlassian: https://lnkd.in/eYfXSAGW
Amplitude: https://lnkd.in/euW96FxP
Canada Post: https://lnkd.in/e24ngYdq
DHL: https://lnkd.in/eUVTtp-G
Duolingo: https://lnkd.in/eMvJCuS6
Girlguiding: https://lnkd.in/eEBiXX6d 👍
Goldman Sachs: https://lnkd.in/e5x7BuPt
JSTOR: https://lnkd.in/eAnyrtcu 👍
MetLife: https://lnkd.in/evVE8sqf
Monzo: https://lnkd.in/edVV8QWz
NASA: https://lnkd.in/eM637kfD
NHS: https://lnkd.in/eYK3QMa2 👍
Progressive’s: https://lnkd.in/evx_8bzY 👍
Schibsted: https://lnkd.in/et_BXg6R
Skrill: https://lnkd.in/e2HGTq4q 👍
Slack: https://lnkd.in/ejZ2QtJa
Zendesk: https://lnkd.in/ekAp2RCn 👍
Wise: https://lnkd.in/eWk-Mvf9

✤ Useful resources

Tone and Voice Workshop (Miro, PDF), by Antonia Horvath
https://lnkd.in/epNJmp5B

UX Writer’s Guide To Voice & Tone, by Slater Katz
https://lnkd.in/e2wx8BVt

Voice Principles And Tone Map, by Paavan Buddhdev
https://lnkd.in/eQbDH5qG

Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice, by Kate Moran
https://lnkd.in/epMMXFTb

Deliveroo Voice and Tone Case Study, by Rhiannon Jones
https://lnkd.in/ejShWbmd

Brand Voice vs. Tone Worksheet (PDF), by Oskar Duberg
https://lnkd.in/eWpeEHSV

✤ Books

– Content Design by Sarah Winters
– Nicely Said, by Nicole Fenton, Kate Kiefer Lee
– Everybody Writes, by Ann Handley
– Conversational Design by Erika Hall
– Writing Is Designing, by Michael Metts, Andy Welfle ✏️