Tone of Voice VS writing principles
"The problem isn’t that most organisations don’t get tone of voice. It’s that most organisations don’t get writing, full stop. You’d think with all those mercurial benefits, businesses would be all over the practice of writing – they’re exactly the kinds of aptitudes they love to call ‘high-performing’. But most organisations are entirely blind to it"
From Nick Parker, in Tone Knob.
It's this. I keep thinking maybe I'll weigh in on this discussion (started in LinkedIn, obviously) but I'm not sure I have the energy for a debate on it. But there's definitely something in Tone of Voice VS Writing Principles
Behind the scenes, most businesses just need to make things clear. If you send out an email and it's not clear, people will phone or email and the more they do that, the more customer service people you need.
So write clear emails. Write clear interface copy. Yes, tone of voice comes into it a bit, but honestly, like I said when I did a presentation way back when I was working for MOO, if people can't understand what you're selling and find a way to buy it, your super clever or quirky tone of voice doesn’t mean anything.
Sometimes I think ‘tone of voice’ is for the marketing people. Writing principles are for everyone else who communicates with customers. And there's a lot of those people.
And the writing principles are based on things that apply to every company, like:
put the answer first, use the rest of the writing to expand on it – that way if people don't read much, they'll still take in the important bits
never use a long word when a short one will do (read it out loud if you can and if you sound like you've swallowed a dictionary, it's probably not right)
use formatting to make things easier to read – like bullet points, numbered lists and white space
write one point per sentence, one topic per paragraph
it's ok to have a paragraph that's only one sentence long if it makes your writing clearer
etc.
A long time ago Harry (ex-Monzo, who started this Tone of Voice debate) came into Bulb for a chat with the team. He said most businesses don't write that differently when it comes down to it. I think he called it something like 'business modern'. Basically it's just making sure that the way you communicate is clear. At the time, gov.uk was still on the ascent and people were realising the difference that clear writing could make.
Of course (like I said way back in the very first ever talk I gave, actually, in 2006 or something) tone of voice will come into it - maybe you'll say 'Thanks!' or 'Thaaaaanks!' or 'Thank you' or 'That's lovely, thank you!' to customers once you're confirming something. But if it's not clear how they take the action in the first place, you won't be able to apply your tone of voice, because there will be nothing to thank anyone for. So use good writing principles to write well, and tone of voice principles to add the magic.
Is it more nuanced than this? Yes of course, but folks, this is Tumblr.
