UX Writing Rules
How to apply Naos UX Writing Rules
These rules apply at English-US source level. Regional formats are handled by localization. Never hardcode dates, times, numbers, or currency.
These rules apply to every piece of UI copy. Some of these rules can be overridden by a specific component or pattern's own rules — for example, punctuation patterns within a component, copy or button label length limits for a specific component, or timestamp precision for audit-trail components.
Writing principles
- Clear: Use simple and direct language
- Consistent: Follow the Naos UX Writing Rules and the rules established for each component and pattern
- Helpful: Guide users toward their goals; never blame our users when they trigger an error
- Inclusive: Write for a global audience and for everyone
Language
Always use American English.
| American (use) | Do not use |
|---|---|
| -ize (organize, customize) | -ise (organise, customise) |
| -or (color, behavior) | -our (colour, behaviour) |
| -er (center, theater) | -re (centre, theatre) |
| canceled, traveled | cancelled, travelled |
| program | programme |
Talking to and about users
- Address users with "you"/"your", or the imperative.
- Exception: Say "I"/"my" only in legal agreement flows or password reset — where the user speaks in their own voice: "I confirm I have received permission from all contacts."
- Start instructions with the purpose: "To update contacts, import via copy and paste."
- "My Plan" is the plan management page. No pronoun before it.
- Good: "Go to My Plan."
- Bad: "Go to your My Plan."
- Use plural when referring to users in general — more inclusive across languages.
- When talking about one specific user, say "they"/"their". Never say "he", "she", "his", "her".
User role terminology:
| Role | Use | Do not use |
|---|---|---|
| Account users | user / Brevo user / member | persons |
| Person running the account | account owner | admin |
| Conversations agents | agent | support analyst |
| Responsible for a record | contact owner / task owner | manager |
| Brevo partner | Brevo expert partner / Brevo partner | expert (alone) |
| Colleagues | colleague / your team | team mate |
| Campaign recipients | contacts / recipients / audience | subscribers / readers |
| Users' customers | customers / prospects | clients |
| Website visitors | web visitors / visitors | — |
| Generic sales role | salesperson | salesman |
| Generic marketing role | marketers | marketing manager |
| Generic business role | business owner | businessman |
Grammar
Active voice: Use it by default. Use passive voice to avoid blaming users when they trigger an error and explain what they cannot do in Brevo.
- Good: "Anonymous contacts cannot be deleted."
- Bad: "You cannot delete anonymous contacts."
Imperative: Use it for instructions, buttons, tooltips, and feature descriptions. Never "please", "you can", "allows you to", "you must", "enables you to".
- Exception: use "We recommend" when a softer tone genuinely matters (for example, security prompts): "To secure your account, we recommend you activate automatic IP detection."
| Context | Tense | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Feature descriptions | Present | "Automations send emails based on contact behavior." |
| Consequences of an action | Future | "All unsaved changes will be lost." |
| Loading states | Present continuous (-ing) | "We're importing your contacts." |
| Completed actions / event logs | Past | "Your campaign was sent to 1,240 contacts." |
Style and punctuation
Contractions: Affirmative — use them (we're, you've, it's). Negative — spell out in full (cannot, does not, could not). Never can't, doesn't, couldn't.
Bold:
- Use bold for branded feature names: Marketing Platform, Automations, Contacts.
- Use bold for UI labels in navigation instructions: "Go to My Plan."
Sentence case and capitalization
- Only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized in all UI copy. Never ALL CAPS.
- Lowercase for object names that share a feature name: "create an automation" (object) vs "go to Automations" (feature).
- File extensions: Use uppercase, no period prefix.
- Good: JPEG, PNG, CSV, XLSX
- Bad: .jpeg, .csv
Punctuation
- Periods end body copy, tooltips, notifications. No periods in headers, button labels, CTAs.
- Always Oxford comma: "create, edit, and delete."
- Never use ampersands (&) — write "and" instead.
- Never use an ellipsis (…) at the end of an enumeration or a list. This does not cover an ellipsis used as a visual truncation indicator when a UI string is cut off for space (Example: a long name ending in "…") — that is a rendering convention, not a punctuation choice. See
history/content.mdandtooltip/content.mdfor this truncation use case. - Max one exclamation mark per screen; favor single-word interjections (Done!).
- No bold or italics for emphasis in body copy except for branded names and UI labels.
- Never use em dashes to mark a pause or emphasize a point, as is common in English. Use commas, colons, or separate sentences instead.
- Number ranges: use en dash, no spaces
- Good: 10–20.
- Date/time ranges: use hyphen with spaces
- Good: June 13 - June 15.
Lists:
- Each item is a distinct sentence → capital letter, period at end.
- List continues from an intro sentence → lowercase, comma after each item, period on last item, no "and" or "or".
- Good: "With Payments, you can: offer a customized payment experience, create links in minutes, transfer earnings to your bank account."
- Single-word items → period after last item only, no commas.
Acronyms: Spell out on first use, then add the acronym in parentheses: Sender Policy Framework (SPF).
Latin abbreviations: do not use any.
| Do not use | Use instead |
|---|---|
| e.g. | for example |
| i.e. | that is / in other words |
| etc. | and so on (or list the items) |
| vs. | versus / compared to |
Talking about Brevo
When to say Brevo, we, our:
| Context | Use |
|---|---|
| System acts automatically | "Brevo" — never "the platform" or "our website" |
| Brevo triggers an error | "We could not" — always. Never "Brevo could not". |
| Presenting features / announcements | "our" — never "Brevo's [feature]" |
| People at Brevo doing something | "We" + verb |
| Brevo as a destination | "Brevo": "Import your data in Brevo." |
Feature naming and descriptions:
- Name the specific feature — don't say "feature" generically.
- Good: "Use Automations to create personalized experiences."
- Bad: "With this feature, you can create personalized experiences."
- No quotes around product or feature names.
- Never say "product" to refer to features or plans. Use the proper name to be precise.
- Never use superlatives: "enhanced", "simpler", "better", "improved". Describe specifically what it does.
- Good: "Build, preview, and schedule in one place."
- Bad: "A simpler, improved email editor."
- Never describe UI by color, position, or appearance — use element labels.
- Good: "Select Contacts in the sidebar."
- Bad: "Click the icon at the top right."
Numbers
| Context | Rule |
|---|---|
| Zero/one in body text (full sentence only) | Spell out: "One of your campaigns failed to send." |
| Zero/one in all other contexts (alerts, badges, snackbars, labels) | Numeral: "1 campaign sent" / "0 errors" |
| 2–999 | Always numeral. Never start a free-prose sentence with a numeral — rewrite instead. Exception: fixed count-based component formulas (Example: Alert's "4 items need your attention.", Snackbar's "2 contacts deleted.") are allowed to open with a numeral, since they are structured UI patterns rather than free-running prose. |
| 1,000–999,999 | Comma separator. No "K" in body text: 20,000 not 20K. |
| Millions+ in body text | Numeral + full word, lowercase: 2 million. Never abbreviate. |
| Millions+ in dashboards/tables | K / M / B / T — uppercase, no space: 23K, 34.53M |
| Percentages | Numeral + % no space: 19% not 19 percent |
| Fractions | Spell out with hyphen: two-thirds |
| Decimals | Leading zero required: 0.91 not .91. Two decimal places. Full stop as separator. |
| Ordinals | Numeral + suffix, no superscript: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th |
| Currency (general UI) | Symbol before numeral, no space: €25. Omit cents for whole numbers. |
| Currency (invoices/billing) | Always two decimal places: €25.00 |
| Negative numbers | Minus sign (−) not hyphen (-), no space before numeral: −3.2% |
Dates and times
Date formats:
- Tables/dashboards/pickers: MM/DD/YYYY — leading zeros required, slashes, 4-digit year.
- Good: 06/13/2023
- Bad: 6/13/2023 / 06-13-23
- Body text: spell out month, no ordinal suffix, comma before year.
- Good: August 7, 2023 / August 2023 (no day) / Monday, August 7, 2023
- Bad: August 7th, 2023 / 7 August 2023 / August, 2023
Time: 12-hour clock. No leading zero on single-digit hours. AM/PM all caps, no periods, space before. Always include minutes.
- Good: 9:30 AM / 3:00 PM / 12:00 PM (noon) / 12:00 AM (midnight)
- Bad: 09:30 AM / 9:30am / 3 PM
Date + time together: date first, then time. No comma, hyphen, or "at" between them.
- Good: June 13 11:30 AM
- Bad: June 13, 11:30 AM / June 13 at 11:30 AM
For scheduling, billing, and contracts, use date + time together to show the full date format and avoid confusion. Exception: The History component follows its own timestamp rules (see history/content.md).
Ranges:
- Compact UI: hyphen with spaces: June 13 - June 15 / 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
- Body text: Say
from [date] to [date]. Do not saybetween [date] and [date].- Good: "From June 13 to June 15."
- Bad: "Between June 13 and June 15."
Relative time:
| Threshold | Display |
|---|---|
| < 1 min | Just now |
| 1–59 min | X minutes ago |
| 1–23 hours | X hours ago |
| Yesterday | Yesterday (not "1 day ago") |
| 2–6 days | X days ago |
| 7+ days | Switch to long date format: August 7, 2023 |
Timezones: show when the time is location-dependent. Use standard abbreviation (CET, EST) or UTC offset (UTC+1). Place after time with a space.
- Good: 3:00 PM CET / 2:00 PM EST (8:00 PM CET)
- Bad: 3:00 PM Central European Time
Compact UI abbreviations (no full stop after):
- Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
- Days: Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
Inclusive language
Gender-neutral: use "they"/"their" to talk about one specific user. Do not use gendered job titles (salesperson not salesman). Address users as "you" in English — this sidesteps gendered language in localization.
Anti-racist — never use these terms:
| Do not use | Use instead |
|---|---|
| whitelist | safelist |
| blacklist | blocklist |
| master / slave (database) | primary / replica |
| grandfather (as a verb) | apply / migrate |
Anti-ableist — never use these terms:
| Do not use | Use instead |
|---|---|
| disable / disabled (for features) | deactivate |
| dummy text | placeholder text |
| sanity check | validation check |
| crazy / insane | very / powerful / intense |
| OCD (used as an adjective) | detail-oriented / focused |
Culturally sensitive:
- No idioms or culturally specific metaphors — Brevo is a global product.
- Do not use: tribe (use group or community); spirit animal (use inspiration or favorite); guru (use expert or specialist).
- Never assume Western cultural references are universal.
- Never frame tasks as "easy" or "simple" — it excludes users who find them difficult.
Words and phrases to never use
| Do not use | Use instead |
|---|---|
| please | Imperative: "Enter your email." |
| successfully | Remove it: "Your campaign was sent." |
| failed / oops | Describe + action: "We could not send your campaign. Check your sender address." |
| allows you to / you can / enables you to | Imperative: "Send campaigns in one click." |
| you must | Imperative: "Authenticate your domain." |
| enhanced / improved / better / simpler | Specific: "Build, preview, and schedule in one place." |
| easy / simple | Action or time: "This usually takes a few minutes." |
| just | Remove it: "Enter your domain." not "Just enter your domain." |