Our application should look and sound like Quantum Workplace.
Voice and tone are a duo, but distinctively different. One way of thinking about it: You have the same voice all the time, but your tone changes based on the situation. You might use one tone when you're grabbing adult beverages with your closest friends, and a different tone when you're in having a 1-on-1 with your manager.
Voice reflects QW's personality; it's consistent and unchanging.
Tone is the emotional inflection applied to the voice; it adjusts to what's suitable for a particular message.
We're up front and honest. We believe the best workplaces are transparent, so we should be transparent as well.
We're pros at making tools to make work awesome. Our products are backed by user needs and research, so we're confident that we're providing the best solutions out there.
Just because we're experts doesn't mean we're know-it-alls. We seek to educate and illuminate our users as to best practices, but leave flexibility for users to forge their own way in a manner that makes sense for them.
Just because we're professional doesn't mean we have to be stuffy. We believe that there's space for fun. We enjoy quick wit and an effortless, well-timed joke that injects some fun into our experiences.
We know when to be playful, and when we need to button down and be serious. Like a great employee, we know when we need to shift our tone and approach to inspire trust and ensure we’re treating our users with empathy.
We're in the business of people, and we're here as a support system and a friend who cheers our users on to achieving their goals.
We’re not talking to businesses, we’re talking to the humans that run them.
Our tone is empathetic and understanding but with the reassurance that we know how to guide them and help them move forward. We share our expertise and vision with care, comfort, and authenticity — setting a tone with our users that mirrors how they aspire to connect with their employees. While our voice rarely alters from day to day, our tone adapts to appropriately fit each unique situation and represent each aspect of Qwirk.
Interface copy should enhance the usability of our products. Copy should be clear, brief, and simple. While we trust the intelligence of our user, we don’t want to make them think about the copy in addition to how to use our interface.
When writing copy, challenge yourself to write multiple versions, cutting any unnecessary words each time.
Do not use periods in tool tips or help text on forms -- both should be succinct and rarely a complete sentence.
Do not use periods on buttons, in navigation lists, etc.
Emphasis and personality should be created with language and visual design, not punctuation or capitalization. Exclamation marks should be saved for the most exciting of messages in our product. Exclamation marks should be used rarely — as in, a max of one per page.
We're excited you're here! Add some goals now!
We're pumped you're here — add some goals to get rolling
We follow the AP Style, so do not use the Oxford comma (a comma before and in a list).
Capitalization should never be used for emphasis in product copy. Rely on text size, weight, or words to provide emphasis.
Most headers should be title case with no punctuation. When a header is a full sentence, such as in an empty state, it should be sentence case with punctuation.
All buttons should be title case with no punctuation.
Tool tips should be sentence case without punctuation.
Ellipses should only be used for truncation purposes (for example, when a survey question can’t fit in the UI). Ellipses should not be used to trail off a sentence.
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Hyphens are used for compound adjectives, not adverbs. AKA, if it's being used as a descriptor, hyphens may be the right choice. If you're referring to an action, you probably need to ditch the hyphens.
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