Great documentation does more than inform. It turns confusion into clarity and first-time users into confident experts. This guide helps you create that kind of documentation across every channel and format.
What is a document style guide?
A document style guide is your single source of truth for how your organization writes, designs, and structures content across every touchpoint. It turns scattered preferences into clear, practical standards so anyone can create content that feels on-brand, effortless to read, and built for a global audience.
Welcome to the Document360 Style Guide, your industry-grade playbook for content that is consistent, human, and unmistakably ours. Whether you are shaping product documentation or user manuals, crafting product feature blogs, fine-tuning user interface text, or optimizing content for accessibility, SEO, and global readers, this guide gives you concrete, opinionated standards you can rely on every day. It also sets out principles for inclusive language and for collaborating with AI chatbots and AI agents, so human writers and AI work together with one clear, unified voice. Use it as both a starting point and a reference: a place to learn our voice, settle tricky style questions fast, and ensure every interaction, article, screen, or conversation delivers a cohesive, professional brand experience.
Why this guide matters
Consistency in content helps establish trust with users and ensures clarity across all touchpoints. The Document360 Style Guide provides a structured approach to writing that reflects our brand values of simplicity, usability, and professionalism.
Whether you're an experienced technical writer or new to content creation, this guide will help you:
Maintain a clear and consistent voice.
Follow best practices for grammar, terminology, and formatting.
Create user-friendly and accessible content for all audiences.
Enhance content visibility through SEO-friendly practices.
Deliver documentation that meets the highest standards of usability and readability.
What this guide covers
1. Voice and tone
Establishes how we communicate with our audience, professionally and clearly. The tone adapts based on context, such as instructional documentation, error messages, or promotional content.
2. Grammar and mechanics
Outlines grammatical rules and mechanics for sentence structure, punctuation, and capitalization, ensuring all content adheres to standard conventions.
3. Vocabulary
Provides guidance on choosing precise, consistent, and user-friendly terminology. It includes approved terms, forbidden phrases, and preferred alternatives to avoid ambiguity.
Who should use this guide?
If you write, review, or influence any content that reaches your users, this guide is for you. It provides a single source of truth for language, tone, structure, and terminology across the entire product ecosystem.
Use this guide if you are:
Technical writers – to maintain consistency and accuracy across all product documentation.
UX writers – to craft clear, intuitive, and user-focused interface text.
Developers – to align UI strings and error messages with the product’s voice.
Designers – to pair visuals with accessible, concise, and on-brand text.
Marketers – to create messaging that is readable, discoverable, and aligned with our terminology.
Editors – to enforce quality, coherence, and editorial standards before content ships.
Anyone who puts words in front of users can treat this guide as their operational baseline.
How to use this guide
Start with the basics: Familiarize yourself with the principles of voice, tone, and grammar.
Refer as needed: Use specific sections as references when writing user manuals, UI text, creating templates, or optimizing for SEO.
Collaborate and align: Share the guide with your team to ensure a consistent approach to content creation.
Benefits of following the style guide
Improved user experience: Clear and accessible content ensures that users and AI assistants find and interpret the information accurately, reducing confusion and speeding up task completion.
Brand consistency: A unified voice across documentation, UI, marketing, and AI-generated responses reinforces trust, reliability, and product maturity.
Efficiency: Standardized patterns, terminology, and templates reduce rework, accelerate content creation, and ensure consistency across human-written and AI-authored outputs.
Search visibility: SEO-friendly, structured content improves discoverability, both for users searching for information and for AI systems retrieving or summarizing content.
Future readiness: As AI-driven interfaces become a core part of product interaction, consistent writing ensures your content remains machine-friendly, predictable, and easy for AI agents to navigate and respond to.
By using this style guide, you contribute to delivering a seamless, high-quality experience for all users. Dive into the sections ahead to explore each aspect in detail.