The Microsoft Voice, Part 3: For Simplicity’s Sake
How UX writing should focus on your customer
In this series on the Microsoft Voice principles, we’re sharing some of our internal videos about writing with the larger content design community. This week, we explore the second Microsoft Voice principle: crisp and clear.
This one is about simplicity. It pushes us to create with less ambiguity, using a design approach that prioritizes scanning. And that doesn’t necessarily mean less words. In fact, we try to move focus away from the words we write and toward the people who read them. For example, how much heavy lifting are you asking your audience to do? Crisp, clear writing reduces a person’s cognitive load by not making them wonder what you mean by jargon like “cognitive load.”
The video above shares more about this part of our writing philosophy. Leave your thoughts below and stay tuned for more on the Microsoft Voice.
Learn more about the overall philosophy of the Microsoft Voice Principles, or dive right in to the details of how we make our communications both Warm and Relaxed and Ready to Lend a Hand.
Special thanks to Kirsten Ballweg, Brian James, Evan Pederson, Joline Tang, Juan Sanchez and Liz Vital, Grace Queen, and Jenna Jaco for working on the article and the video. Awesome work.
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