Microsoft has released the latest edition of its writing style guidelines as a website: “Welcome to the Microsoft Writing Style Guide, your guide to writing style and terminology for all communication—whether an app, a website, or a white paper. If you write about computer technology, this guide is for you. Today, lots of people are… Read more »
Category: style guides
Don’t say “simply”
At this month’s WriteTheDocs London meetup, Jim Fisher of Pusher presented a talk called “Don’t say Simply“. He talked about words, such as “simply”, that can seem innocuous when written in user documentation, but which show a lack of sympathy when read. He showed how popular “simply” is with developer documentation writers, by showing the number… Read more »
Writing for User Interfaces Style Guide
The Government Digital Service has published an interesting guide on writing copy for User Interfaces and transactional interfaces: Writing for user interfaces It provides some good advice, and it’s consistent with the advice provided by other organisations, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Microsoft’s “No more robot speak” in action
Our post about how Microsoft is changing its writing style (Microsoft moves away from “robot speak” in its user documentation) generated a lot of interest, so I thought it might be useful to post some examples of it that we’ve spotted. These examples are from Office 365 Premium Edition.
Microsoft moves away from “robot speak” in its user documentation
One of the highlights from the Technical Communications UK 2014 conference was the keynote presentation from Microsoft’s Doug Kim. Doug is Senior Managing Editor for Office.com, and leads guidelines and best practices for Voice in Office. By Voice, he means the tone of voice and style of English used in the User Interface and user documentation…. Read more »