VOICES OF UX
Knowing when to break the rules
Why content designers shouldn’t follow all of the rules, even if they made them
When you’re a student, you learn you must always follow the rules. In the first week of school, you’re often given a sheet of paper or a syllabus outlining all the dos and don’ts of the classroom. If you don’t obey, you get in trouble. When you’re young, that may look like timeout or having to rewrite “I will not skateboard in the halls” 100 times (Bart Simpson, I’m looking at you).
There was always such an emphasis on following the rules that I was in shock when I started my career in content design and I was told I got to decide if I wanted to follow them. Oh, the power I felt.
The rules
There are many writing rules you learn growing up. You learn punctuation, grammar, capitalization, sentence structure, and more. These are the fundamentals that I usually follow.
Then there are the rules I make myself.
As a content designer, I’ve made several UX style guides- manuals that lay out the general rules for contributing to specific brands.
When you have multiple writers working on a brand or you’re working on multiple brands yourself, style guides help keep everything consistent. Style guides typically help you understand the voice of the brand, when to use which casing, terminology, and much more. Explore PatternFly’s style guide to learn more.
So, style guides are helpful. Even though I help write them, sometimes the rules can be bent.
Why make rules if I don’t even follow them?
Well, I usually do. However, just because a rule is what is recommended, doesn’t mean it can’t be broken. As a content designer, clarity trumps correctness.
I don’t always have enough room to write out sentences to explain what I need to. Sometimes I have enough space for 3–4 words. So, do I take out some words that do not add value to the sentence? You bet.
Let’s go through some examples of when you may want to break the rules.
Conjunctions at the start of sentences
You may have been taught in school not to start a sentence with a conjunction (and, yet, so, but, if). But I disagree. See what I did there? Sometimes content is easier to read if you break up sentences into smaller, more digestible thoughts.
When writing for a more casual brand, I try to write as I would speak. And I don’t typically speak in super-long sentences. Sometimes I use 2 smaller sentences instead of 1 lengthy sentence. And that often means starting with a word I was told not to.
Spelling out numbers less than 10
Most writing styles (AP, APA) say to spell out numbers less than 10, so nine, eight, seven, and so on. However, using the numeral form (9,8,7) is much easier to scan and often catches the user’s eye. A study by the Nielson Norman Group found that people often associate numbers with facts and that numerals jump out more because they look so different from letters.
Example:
- Out of the 9 participants, 8 agree that ice cream is the best dessert.
- Out of the nine participants, eight agree that ice cream is the best dessert.
Okay, I made up that poll, but I would like to believe most people agree with me that ice cream is the superior dessert. But which sentence could you read easier? Probably the first. Use numerals to help with readability.
Ending a sentence with a preposition.
Prepositions are words expressing a relation to another word, usually indicating direction, time, or location. Some examples include on, to, above, toward, and along. When we speak, we often end with a preposition naturally.
Example:
- Where are you coming from?
- Who are you going with?
- What did you do that for?
Write what’s natural for your users. You don’t need to sound fancy.
When to break the rules
Okay, so we know we don’t need to follow the rules all the time. But, most of the time, the rules we follow are good. They keep our writing consistent and easy to follow. But don’t be afraid to break them if it makes your work easier to read and understand.
However, there are some rules I try to always follow, such as:
- Capitalize proper nouns. Keeping brand and product names consistent helps build brand identity and helps users know what are not generic terms.
- Use consistent language. Keeping the terms the same for the same action will help users navigate easier and feel more comfortable. Is the user “liking” or “favoriting” — pick one and stick to it.
- Avoid double negatives. “Do you not want to cancel?” Yes…wait no? Whichever lets me cancel. See how confusing that is?
- Use the Oxford comma. This one might be controversial, but I am on team comma.
There are plenty more rules than the ones I listed. There are what feels like hundreds of grammar rules. Then there are the rules you make up (or someone else did) for your brand.
One brand I worked on listed “keep information positive” in our style guide. We wanted to encourage people, not make them feel bad reading our site. Typically, this was a great thing to do. However, we chose not to follow that when discussing financial choices we didn’t want to support. We still gave all the information for the user, but we focused a lot more on the risks involved.
Rules are meant to help guide us. I like to see them as a suggestion. I’ll consider it, but ultimately I choose what will make my words clear and concise. Pick helping your user over following the rules.
Just don’t tell my 8th grade English teacher.
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