Content style guide

Creating a shared language for content

Our UX writing team started to grow and we needed a framework to ensure consistency across the digital experience.

I led the development of a UX content style guide, defining standards for grammar, vocabulary, and writing patterns.

This guide became a shared reference for UX writers and the localization team, along with cross-functional partners including marketing and product.

The challenge

The UX writing team didn’t have any central leadership, meaning writers often worked in silos for individual product teams. There was some basic guidance, but it varied per team.

Without a central style guide, this led to:

inconsistent grammar and terminology
different writing styles across products
uncertainty about preferred language conventions
difficulty scaling content across markets

We needed a clear set of writing guidelines to ensure our copy was consistent across the ecosystem.

My role

I created a unified content style guide and ensure it met the needs of all different stakeholders.

Researched and benchmarked industry style guides
Defined grammar, vocabulary, and writing conventions
Documented guidelines in a clear, usable format
Collaborated with UX writers to review and refine the guide
Worked with localization teams to validate language decisions

The process

Benchmarking industry standards

I benchmarked existing style guides from industry leaders to understand best practice for UX writing and content design.

This helped me understand which conventions would best work for clarity, usability, and consistency throughout our platforms.

Defining content standards

With these insights, I documented guidances that covered areas such as:

grammar conventions
vocabulary and terminology
punctuation usage
writing patterns for UI content

I needed to create a guide that was practical and easy to apply across different product streams.

Collaborating with other UX writers

I shared early drafts with other UX writers and received feedback to make sure it worked with their product area.

This collaborative review helped refine the guidelines and shaped them to reflect shared practices across teams.

Aligning with localization and other teams

Since the business worked across many markets, I presented the guidelines to the localization team to make sure they understood the reasoning behind our languages decisions and we discussed exceptions that could be made depending on the language.

I also shared the guide with other cross-functional teams to make them aware of our writing standards and align where needed.

The impact

The content style guide created a single source of truth for the UX writing team, helping us ensure consistency across product areas.

It also:

improved alignment between product, localization, and other teams
clarified grammar and vocabulary decisions
supported new writers joining the team
strengthened the maturity of content design practices within the organisation
could be used in the future to train AI to align with our writing style