Skip to content

Application Copy Style Guide

ginatrapani edited this page Jul 19, 2012 · 1 revision

When writing copy for the application interface, make sure your labels, descriptions, dialog boxes, buttons and other UI element messaging is:

Consistent

If you're not sure how to word or capitalize something, look at how the existing elements in the interface are styled and keep your new copy consistent. For example:

  • Settings labels capitalization: First word is capitalized, not the second.
  • Throughout the application, tasks are called "tasks," not "todos" or "to-dos."

Brief But Clear

Touchscreens have limited real estate so your application messaging should use as few words as possible while staying clear. Avoid redundancy.

For example, "Auto-archive automatically archives your done tasks to done.txt" shouldn't repeat auto, done, archive, etc, but it should let the user know it works upon task completion. You could rewrite that to something like "Automatically archive tasks to done.txt on completion."