About UX writing

The words in a user interface (UI), commonly referred to as "UX copy" or "microcopy," are just as important as the visual design and layout. UX copy is an essential element of design that can be used strategically to drive better UX decisions and guide users to succeed.

Our UX writing guidelines provide a place for UX professionals like you to learn about designing with words.

Anyone involved in UX—researchers, designers, developers, content strategists, and more—can use this guide for building better product experiences with content design and strategy.

As a PatternFly community, our goal with this style guide is to help UX professionals:

• Create clarity and consistency across products and applications.
• Make products sound more conversational and human.
• Use written content to create unified, on-brand experiences for all users.

With that said, we recognize that the PatternFly way is not the only way. This guide isn’t meant to:

• Overrule another style guide.
• Provide a complete list of all writing rules across all channels.
• Serve as hard requirements that everyone must follow.

We provide thorough guidance across our UX writing guidelines, but you may find the following supplementary resources to also be useful.

• For component-specific microcopy guidance, see the component's design guidelines.
• For microcopy guidance that’s not included in this guide, see IBM Carbon’s UX content guidelines.
• For Red Hat product terminology and documentation standards, see Red Hat's supplementary style guide for Red Hat product documentation.
• For additional terminology guidance, use Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary.

If you're writing for Red Hat products and find conflicting information in these resources, default to PatternFly's guidance.

In true Flyer fashion, we keep this style guide open. Contribute your ideas through GitHub.