Tones could fall at either extreme of each dimension, or somewhere in between. matter-of-fact: Does the writer seem to be enthusiastic about the subject? Is the organization excited about the service or product, or the information it conveys? Or is the writing dry and matter-of-fact? They are not usually intentionally irreverent or offensive to the reader.) irreverent: Does the writer approach the subject in a respectful way? Or does she take an irreverent approach? (In practice, most irreverent tones are irreverent about the subject matter, in an effort to set the brand apart from competitors. casual: Is the writing formal? Informal? Casual? (Note that casual and conversational are not necessarily synonymous, but they do often appear together.) We didn’t evaluate if the writers successfully landed their jokes.) serious: Is the writer trying to be humorous? Or is the subject approached in a serious way? (Note that for our purposes, this dimension was only the attempt at humor. removing words too specific to be widely applied to a variety of websites and topics (e.g., “romantic”)Īt the end of this process, we identified 4 primary tone-of-voice dimensions.removing words that had no obvious antonyms, so wouldn’t work as dimensions (e.g., “nostalgic”).
clustering any words that were similar (e.g., “upbeat” and “cheerful”).
We then iteratively refined that list, by: That process produced a list of 37 website-specific tone words. We then eliminated any words that wouldn’t be realistic content goals for normal websites (like “guilty”). We began with a long list of literary tone words. Our goal was to identify several tone-of-voice dimensions that could be used to describe the tone of voice of any website. We decided to design a manageable web-specific tool that content strategists could use to create simple tone profiles for a company’s online presence. You’ll also notice that many of these lists are huge, some with hundreds of words. You’ll quickly notice that most of those words have very specific meanings and connotations (e.g., “vexed” or “cynical”), and couldn’t be used to describe the tones of many (if any) websites. (Most of them come from websites for undergraduate English courses). The Four Dimensions of Tone of VoiceĪ quick Google search for “tone-of-voice words” will surface lists of hundreds of words used to describe literary tones. Then we conducted qualitative usability testing and online surveys, measuring the impact of those tone qualities on users. So, we wondered, what are the broader qualities that make up a tone? Here we describe a framework of 4 dimensions that can be used to analyze or plan a site’s tone of voice. Tone of voice is the way we tell our users how we feel about our message, and it will influence how they’ll feel about our message, too.ĭespite the importance of tone, advice about it tends to be vague: “Be consistent. It’s the way in which we communicate our personality. Tone is more than just the words we choose. Writing for the web is obviously different from writing prose (or at least it should be, since web users read very little.) Still, every scrap of writing on a page (from body copy to button labels and other UX copywriting) contributes to the tone of voice we’re using to speak to our users. In literature, the tone of voice refers to the author’s feelings towards the subject, as expressed through the writing itself. If we envision our website as a tool that enables us to have a conversation with our users, it’s clear that a carefully considered tone of voice is critical.