97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know

Chapter 58. Align Your Tone, Voice, and Audiences

Marino Ivo Lopes Fernandes

Who do you think you are?

Who do you think you’re talking to?

You probably had clear reactions to those questions. Maybe you were confused or annoyed or stopped reading. These questions illustrate that tone and voice manage the relationships you earn with your readers. You can learn dos and don’ts about tone and voice on the internet: how personal pronouns, punctuation, and emojis help you manage your writing style. But tone and voice are not gimmicks or simple tricks to sound friendly. Managing tone and voice depends on a writer’s answer to three who questions (and not the snarky ones you just read):

• Who are you addressing?

• Who do you want readers to think you are?

• How do you represent who your readers are in your content?

There is a difference between writer-based prose and reader-based prose. Tone and voice moderate how our readers interact with our content. In reader-based prose, writers do the hard work for the reader: they consider the needs and interests of readers. It’s an act of care. Writer-based prose follows a stream of consciousness, is ego-driven, and assumes that readers can access the writer’s mind. Such a relationship with a reader is unearned. If the reader would benefit from follow-up questions to understand you, you’re engaging in writer-based prose.

Here’s a scenario of these ideas ...