← All projects
Meta
Terminology Playbook & Content Guidelines
A shared terminology system bringing consistency to complex business tools.
Situation
Permissions terminology was inconsistent across platforms. This was creating confusion for users who switch between surfaces or use resources like the business help center. Internally, there was confusion about the preferred terminology. Partner teams would come to me to review or work on content on other platforms. This was taking up a lot of my time and taking my focus away from more strategic projects.
Tasks
- Develop consistent ways of describing permissions
- Articulate how permissions function with greater clarity
- Develop and share permissions guidelines so partner teams can design and develop new permissions in other interfaces and ensure a consistently safe and secure experience
Actions
- I partnered with other content designers in my space to develop a terminology framework and content guidelines
- We made a list of terms, defined them, and created usage notes to help others write with the term in the UI
- For example, listing essential verb, adjective, or noun pairings. E.g. “Post on Feed, not Post to Feed” (controlled language using the term)
- Provided visuals to help people understand how terms related to one another
- Provided in-product examples of term usage
- Listed out internal terms/acronyms to help teams communicate with each other about app infrastructure and UI elements
- Listed out terms to avoid, the reasons why, and what to use instead
- Notes about how to handle terminology on legacy platforms e.g. use legacy terminology on legacy platforms due to revenue risk of disrupting experiences for high-value businesses.
Results
- Published a framework and guidelines that drive consistency, save time and effort across multiple teams, and help scale our work. I enjoy foundational work that broadens impact, creates efficiency, and facilitates easier development of new features
- I regularly get comments from other CDs like: “This is the nicest looking terminology playbook I’ve seen. The graphic is super cute/helpful, and I love that you include the rationale for why not to use something.”
