Voice, Tone, and Writing Style Guidelines
Below is a start of voice, tone, and writing style guidelines for public web properties. This is a work in progress, to be iterated on. Some of the content in this document is borrowed from the Mattermost Editorial Style Guide, which is managed by the Marketing team.
Some of the recommendations across the documents, such as punctuating lists and heading capitalization are not currently aligned but will be iterated on for alignment across all web properties.
Our voice is informed by our foundation as a messaging platform for Enterprise Developers and DevOps, but respects that our client base spans many types of organizations. Writing is one way we can bring Mattermost’s values to life. And above all, our voice demonstrates our deep respect for our clients and users. Ultimately, Mattermost exists because of them, so it’s important we keep their needs at the forefront of our writing style.
Mattermost's voice is:
Clear
Concise
Consistent
Customer-centric
Professional
To achieve this, we keep the following principles in mind when writing content:
Write clearly and concisely - get to the point quickly without losing valuable information
Use simple, plain language that is easy to understand and family-friendly
Avoid jargon and overly technical terminology
Use direct, casual tone instead of an informal tone
Use the active voice
Write short, active sentences and maintain a visual separation between page elements
Focus on what the target audience wants to accomplish by being practical/outcome-focused
Write for an international audience without idioms or expressions that people outside of your country/region are unlikely to understand
We generally avoid the following statements and phrases as they're overused and vague:
"Work better"
"Do better work, faster"
"Get more done in less time"
"Chat" (as a stand-alone feature reference. However it is ok to use chat when describing a benefit "Create a Jira ticket without leaving your chat window." )
"DevOps teams"
"Utilize" (instead, use “use”)
"High performance teams"
Phrases that directly praise ourselves: “We’ve built an intuitive workplace messaging solution.”, “It’s a joy to use.”
The appropriate tone differs across different mediums. We don’t write technical and help documentation with the same tone as website copy or educational content. You can vary your tone to fit the situation, just as you’d talk to an angry person with a different tone than with an excited child. Voice is to tone as climate is to weather.
The Mattermost voice remains the same, even when the tone varies.
Work on the premise that "Every page is page 1", as a large portion of users access our documentation directly from a Google search
Add a summary to the top of each page for readers to be able to quickly assess the content for suitability
Break long sections into smaller, easily digestable subpages
Have at most one key point or action per paragraph
Refer to one thing or idea with the same word throughout the page
Use ordered lists or bullets where appropriate, as they are generally easier to read than long blocks of text
Minimize content so it can be found and remembered. Keep pages short, modular, and focused on a single topic
Visit our Documentation Style Guide for additional information and examples.
These guidelines were inspired by Stripe's knowledge base content and by other sites shared in this Document360 article.