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UX writingCraft conventionIntermediate

Voice and Tone

Voice is who you are and stays constant. Tone is how you speak in a moment and must change with the situation.

Definition

Voice is the consistent personality of a product's language. Tone is the situational adjustment to that voice. A product with a single tone across every situation has confused the two.

Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.

On this page
  1. Definition
  2. Tone by situation
  3. Documenting voice usefully
  4. Continue from here

Tone by situation

SituationTone
OnboardingEncouraging, brief, concrete.
Routine confirmationNeutral and quiet. Do not celebrate a save.
Minor errorCalm and helpful, never apologetic to the point of noise.
Serious failure or data lossDirect, factual, accountable. No humour, no mascot.
Security and privacyPrecise and unambiguous. Clarity outranks warmth.
CancellationRespectful and efficient. Do not argue.

Documenting voice usefully

  • Three or four adjectives with an explicit 'but not': confident but not arrogant, friendly but not chatty.
  • Paired examples of the same message written well and badly.
  • A word list: terms to use, terms to avoid, and the one canonical name for each concept.
  • Rules for capitalisation, punctuation, numbers and dates, so the surface is consistent too.

Continue from here

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Applies when you are designing

A Pricing PageAn AI ProductAn Onboarding FlowAuthenticationSettings

Principles behind this

The reasoning this solution is an application of.

Short definition

The one-paragraph version, for when that is all you need.

Related concept

Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.