Voice & tone
Voice is who we are. Tone is how we show up in a given moment. The voice stays constant across every surface — the tone adapts to what the person in front of us needs right now.
Voice
These four attributes define how Open Point writes — in product UI, documentation, onboarding, and anywhere else words appear. They’re not rules to follow mechanically; they’re characteristics to carry into every decision.
Clear, not clever
Plain language over jargon. Familiar words over impressive ones. Say the thing you mean in the fewest words that fully convey it. The goal is immediate comprehension, not admiration for the prose.
“Clever” writing forces the reader to work harder. In an engagement tool used by community members of all literacy levels, that extra effort has a real cost: someone gives up, submits incomplete feedback, or feels excluded by language they can’t comfortably parse.
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Leverage stakeholder insights to drive meaningful community outcomes at scale.
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See who’s engaged and what they’re saying — then act on it.
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Utilise the consultation management interface to facilitate participant onboarding workflows.
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Set up your consultation and invite participants to join.
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Direct, not cold
Get to the point — but don’t strip out the person. Direct writing respects the reader’s time. Cold writing makes them feel like they’re dealing with a machine. You can be efficient and still sound human.
This matters most in high-stakes moments: errors, warnings, and destructive actions. Being direct means not burying the key information in hedging language. Not being cold means not making the person feel blamed or dismissed.
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Empowering, not instructional
Frame everything around what the person can do — not what the system requires of them. Instructional language positions the user as a passive recipient of commands. Empowering language positions them as an agent with capability.
This is most visible in onboarding, CTAs, and empty states. Instead of telling someone what they must do, show them what becomes possible.
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Human, not corporate
Write like a knowledgeable colleague, not a press release. Open Point’s users deal with enough corporate language from the organisations they work with — our software shouldn’t add to it. Warmth and professionalism aren’t opposites. You can be both without being either stuffy or sycophantic.
“Human” doesn’t mean casual. It means the reader can feel there’s a person on the other end who cares about their experience — not a compliance department covering its bases.
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Tone
Tone is the application of voice to a specific moment. A success message and a destructive action warning should both sound like Open Point — but they shouldn’t sound identical. Here’s how tone shifts across the contexts we write for.
Informational
Neutral, factual. Used in tooltips, help text, and descriptive content where the goal is to inform without adding emotional weight.
Example “Consultations in draft aren’t visible to participants until you publish them.”
Instructional
Clear steps, active voice, present tense. Used in onboarding flows, setup guides, and form instructions. One instruction per sentence.
Example “Add the project location so participants can see which area this consultation covers.”
Success
Warm but measured. Acknowledge that something worked without being over-excited about it. One exclamation mark is almost always one too many in a professional context.
Example “Consultation published. Participants can now access and submit their responses.”
Warning
Calm and forward-looking. A warning isn’t a failure — it’s an alert to something the person should be aware of. Don’t alarm; do inform clearly. State what could happen and what to do about it.
Example “This consultation closes in 2 days. Participants who haven’t submitted yet won’t be able to respond after it closes.”
Error
Direct, calm, solution-focused. Say what went wrong and what to do next. No blame, no alarm, no technical codes in the headline. If the fix is unclear, give a path to help.
Example “We couldn’t save your changes. Check your connection and try again — your draft has been preserved.”
Empty states
Helpful and action-oriented. An empty state should always answer: what is this space for, and how do I fill it? Never apologetic, never directionless. See the Empty states page.
Example “No consultations yet. Create your first consultation to start collecting feedback from your community.”
Destructive / high-stakes
Direct and calm. State the consequence clearly. Don’t soften destructive actions with vague language — that’s how someone deletes something they didn’t mean to. Make sure the person knows exactly what will happen.
Example “Delete this consultation? All 47 submissions will be permanently deleted. This can’t be undone.”
What to avoid
These aren’t arbitrary style rules. Each one is on this list because it either undermines clarity, excludes someone, or erodes trust.
Jargon without explanation
Domain terms are fine when your audience genuinely knows them (e.g. “stakeholder” for professional users). But terms like “engagement velocity”, “response cadence”, or “submission pipeline” are internal abstractions that mean nothing to most users. If you use a technical term, make sure the surrounding context makes it clear.
Passive voice
“Your submission has been received” is less clear than “We received your submission.” Passive voice hides who’s doing what, which makes errors harder to understand and instructions harder to follow. Default to active voice. Use passive only when the agent is genuinely unknown or irrelevant.
Vague CTAs
“Click here”, “Learn more”, “Continue”, “OK” — these labels describe the action of clicking, not the outcome of clicking. A button label should tell someone what will happen when they press it. “Save draft”, “Send invitation”, “Delete project” are all better than their vague equivalents.
Filler phrases
“Please note that…”, “It is worth mentioning that…”, “In order to…”, “At this time…” — these phrases add no meaning and make content harder to scan. Cut them. “Please note that your session will expire in 10 minutes” is just “Your session expires in 10 minutes.”
Gendered language
Default to “they/them” for unspecified individuals. Don’t use “he or she”, “his/her”, or any construction that assumes gender. This applies to placeholder names too — use neutral names or a mix. See the Inclusive language page for more.
Apologetic empty states
“Sorry, there’s nothing here” or “Unfortunately no results were found” treats an absence of content as a failure. In most cases it isn’t — it’s just a state the user needs to move through. Empty states should orient and invite action, not apologise.
Exclamation marks in professional contexts
An exclamation mark in a success message on Social Point’s community-facing welcome screen is fine. An exclamation mark on “Your export is ready!” in the Open Point dashboard feels out of place. Professional users aren’t excited that a CSV downloaded; they just want to know it’s done. Reserve exclamation marks for moments of genuine celebration in community-facing contexts.
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