Content and Writing

Voice

Write the way a competent colleague explains something. Direct, specific, and short enough to finish.

• Lead with the point. The first sentence carries the meaning.
• Use the active voice and a real subject.
• Say what a thing does before saying what it is called.
• Cut adjectives that carry no information. "Powerful", "seamless" and "innovative" tell the reader nothing.
• Prefer the plain word. "Use", not "utilise". "Help", not "facilitate".

Sentences

• One idea per sentence. Two clauses at most.
• Twenty-five words is long. Break it.
• Address the reader as "you". Refer to the organisation as "we" only when the actor genuinely matters.
• Expand an acronym the first time it appears, then use it.

Capitalisation and formatting

• Sentence case for headings, buttons, labels and navigation. Title Case is reserved for proper nouns.
• No trailing full stop in a heading, a button label or a single-line list item.
• Numerals for numbers, including one through nine. They scan faster in an interface.
• Spell dates out to avoid ambiguity across regions. "9 September 2026", not "09/09/26".
• Use a proper ellipsis character and curly quotes in body copy.

Copy patterns

Element	Pattern	Example
Primary button	Verb plus object, 1 to 3 words	Start a project
Secondary button	Lower-commitment verb	See how it works
Link	Describes the destination, never "click here"	Read the token reference
Section heading	A claim, not a category label	Ships in days, not quarters
Error	What happened, then how to fix it	That email is already registered. Sign in instead.
Empty state	Why it is empty, then the first action	No projects yet. Create one to get started.

Never blame the reader in an error message, and never expose an internal code without a plain-language explanation beside it.

Length

Components are laid out for a range, and copy outside that range breaks the design rather than merely reading badly.

• Eyebrow: 1 to 4 words.
• Heading: under 60 characters. Longer headings wrap into a block that stops looking like a heading.
• Subheading or intro: 1 to 2 sentences, under 160 characters.
• Card body: 2 to 3 lines. Cards in a row need copy of similar length or the grid looks broken.
• Stat label: 1 to 3 words, sitting under a number that does the work.

Each component declares its own limits in the component catalog. Where a limit is declared there, that value wins over the guidance here.

Alt text

• Describe the information the image carries, not the image itself. Skip "image of" and "photo of".
• Decorative images take an empty alt, so assistive technology skips them.
• A chart's alt text states the trend. Put the numbers in a table nearby.
• Keep it under about 125 characters. If more is needed, the image needs a caption.

Inclusive language

• Write for a reader who is new to the subject and does not share your context.
• Avoid idiom and sports metaphor. They do not translate.
• Use gender-neutral phrasing by default. "They" is fine in the singular.
• Avoid language that assumes ability, such as "see below" or "just click".
• Avoid "simply", "just" and "obviously". If it were obvious, the sentence would not be needed.

Before publishing

• Read it aloud. Anything you stumble over gets rewritten.
• Check that headings alone tell the story.
• Confirm every link text makes sense read out of context.
• Run a spellcheck set to the locale the site actually uses.