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Voice and Tone in Microcopy

Voice and Tone in Microcopy

How do we know what to say and how to say it? That's where the Voice and Tone Guide comes in. Microcopy is what we call all those words and small phrases that help someone use an application or website in an optimal way so that they feel good about themselves and succeed in whatever they wanted to do in the first place. But how do we know what to write, what messages to project? That’s where the “Voice and Tone Guide” comes in. First of all, what is voice and tone? Everyone h
Resistance to change: the tendency to revert

Resistance to change: the tendency to revert

Do you remember the Borg in Star Trek intoning "Resistance is Futile"? Yup, well that doesn't happen in real life - unless you consider the decision makers as the Borg... so why did they invest in a microcopy specialist? (How can one resist this singing nun?) If there is one thing I learned, right from the beginning, change is difficult, especially for the decision makers in an organisation. Yes, they attended an excellent lecture on microcopy and were sold on the need. Yes,
What is microcopy?

What is microcopy?

This post provides an overview of Microcopy with a few tips on the way. In 2009, Joshua Porter wrote a blog post with the title "Writing Microcopy" (link here). He described a checkout form he created where quite a few online transactions failed due to billing address errors. So what did he do? He added one sentence next to the billing address field: “Be sure to enter the billing address associated with your credit card”. In the post he wrote: “And just like that, the errors
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