2learn

Voice, rules and maintenance

What it is

After the audit comes the short document that stops the rot: the voice the product writes in, the naming rules for its concepts, and who is responsible for keeping both true. It should fit on a page, or nobody will read it.

Why it matters

Consistency is what makes content feel trustworthy, and consistency does not survive several writers without rules. The alternative is a style guide nobody opens, or a review bottleneck in which one person approves every string. A one-page voice and naming document with a named owner sits between the two: writers self-serve the rules, and the owner settles the genuinely new cases.

Core ideas

Voice is three adjectives and their limits

Pick three, and say what each one rules out. “Clear” means nothing until it rules out “we say ‘authentication’ in an error message”.

Plain      — say "sign in", never "authenticate"
Direct     — one idea per sentence; no "please note that"
Human      — acknowledge the problem; never blame the person
Limits: no jokes in errors, no exclamation marks in confirmations

One word per concept, written down

A naming table mapping each concept to one user-facing term, one internal term and the ones that are banned. This is the single highest-yield artefact in the document.

Concept        User-facing term   Banned
subscription   plan               package, tier, membership
invoice        bill               statement, receipt
delete         delete             remove, archive, trash

Rules for the recurring hard cases

Dates, numbers, currency, capitalisation, buttons and empty states. Ten rules cover most of what writers argue about, and a short example for each is enough.

Name an owner and a route for questions

One person, with a defined way to ask. Without an owner, the rules are a wish; with a committee, nobody can answer in time.

Wire the rules into the tools

Put the strings in one file or one component library, so the default is the right words. A rule that requires remembering will be broken; a rule encoded in the component cannot be.

Practice

Write the one-page standard

Produce a page containing three voice adjectives with their limits, a naming table of at least eight concepts, five formatting rules and the owner’s name.

Done when: a writer who has never met the team can follow it while writing a new screen without asking a question.

Apply it to one screen end to end

Rewrite every string on one screen against the standard. Note each place the standard was silent.

Done when: the screen uses only the approved terms, and any silence you found has been added as a rule.

Common mistakes

  • A style guide nobody reads — the document is long and the product stays inconsistent; fix: cut it to one page and keep the naming table.
  • Rules with no owner — the first argument has no tie-breaker and the rules are abandoned; fix: name one owner and a way to ask them.
  • Voice adjectives with no limits — “friendly” justifies anything; fix: state what each adjective rules out.
  • Several words for one concept — users cannot search, translate or trust the product; fix: keep the naming table and delete the banned synonyms from the code.
  • Rules that live outside the tools — writers cannot follow them under deadline; fix: encode the standard strings in the component library.

Go deeper

Worked examples

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