How to apply

Estimated reading: 2 minutes 260 views

The following example highlights how Voice and Tone can differ the impression within the same situation.

Use case: Error message

The user is facing an error message. During a system error, all changes were discarded.
In this situation, users’ stress levels might increase.
We want to lower that. 😉

Version 1

We take the user’s situation seriously and want to inform matter-of-factly what happened and how the problem can be solved.

Voice: Professional, informative, and approachable
Tone: Serious, matter-of-factly, conversational, polite, and friendly

Do

Your changes could not be saved. Please try again.

We write in a rather dry style to keep the text serious and matter-of-fact. We address the user personally and thus remain conversational.
We are polite and friendly by using “please”. This is essential because the error is caused by the system and not the user, so we want to lower the stress level.

Version 2

At first glance, it’s not always clear how much the tone variation can make a text sound different. Therefore let’s mix 2 of our tone settings up to highlight a bad example.

Voice: Professional, informative, and approachable
Tone: Funny, enthusiastic, conversational, polite, and friendly

Don't

Nope, that didn’t work out! Let’s try again.

Using the word “Nope” makes the text sound very hip and edgy. Also, it is not clear what exactly the error was.
Summarized, our voice settings totally got lost by changing the 2 tones from serious to funny and from matter-of-factly to enthusiastic.

Make sure that Voice & Tone are consistent across all components.

DocuWare Design

How to apply

Use case: Error message

Version 1

Do

Version 2

Don't

CONTENTS

Loading Patterns

Alerts

Banners

Bias-Free Language

Text

Text Area

Time Input

Date Input

Slot Input

Masked Input

Number Input

Text Input