Voice and tone

Unless you've sat through a Grade 9 English lesson recently, you probably don't know the difference between voice and tone. That's okay! There are plenty of professional writers out there (including this one, 10 minutes ago) who wouldn't be able to tell you.

Luckily, our friends at Mailchimp came up with a clear and helpful way of explaining it:

You have the same voice all the time, but your tone changes. You might use one tone when you're out to dinner with your closest friends, and a different tone when you're in a meeting with your boss.

Easy, right? Voice is your unique personality, rhythm, and vocabulary. Tone is how you adapt that voice to different subjects and situations.

The Pixel Union voice

At Pixel Union, we communicate in a friendly, straightforward way. We consider our voice to be authentic, compassionate, knowledgeable, and just a little bit quirky. We believe that ecommerce can and should be fun, and our voice reflects this..

That said, we take every merchant and brand seriously. We may lean towards the casual end of the business spectrum, but we are never glib, never dismissive, never aloof.

Ecommerce is a tough gig. We have nothing but respect for those who endeavour upon it.

With that in mind, we aim to write in a voice that is:

• Clear. We write what we know, and we don't waste time getting to the point. We use simple words, short sentences, and plenty of examples. We're not here to dazzle you with our vocabulary or technical expertise.

• Friendly. We're not a bureaucratic organization, and we definitely don't sound like one. Pixel Union is staffed by folks who are enthusiastic, creative, hardworking, and friendly. Our brand voice should reflect the same traits.

• Helpful. With merchant success as our North Star, we approach every piece of content with a few key questions: Who is it for? What problem does it solve? And will it help merchants sell more?

• Delightful. There's a lot of bad ecommerce writing out there. Through humour and acumen, we aim to raise the bar, bringing joy to our work as well as the work of those who use our tools and services.

Choosing a tone

Unlike voice, tone is changeable. It adapts to the situation. In one instance, tone may be earnest and enthusiastic. In another, it may be no-nonsense and direct.

To find the right tone, you need to think about the needs and attitudes of users in different contexts, and you need to meet them where they are.

Let's look at a few real-world examples.

Type of writing	Tone	Real-world example
Product copy explaining something technical	Direct, neutral, explanatory, accessible	"Draft orders will be listed under Orders > Drafts in the Shopify admin. Order line items can be changed, and standard shipping rates and taxes will apply. You can collect payment within or outside Shopify using the Email invoice option."
Blog post announcing a new product feature	Enthusiastic, cheerful, neighbourly, open to feedback	"In the past few weeks, we’ve added a pair of new premium features to Pixelpop that give you even more options when it comes to customizing your popups and banners. The first is the ability to add text styling and links to your popup’s body content. We had a lot of users ask for this feature, and we made it happen using Markdown, a text-to-HTML conversion tool that makes it easy to add formatting to plain text."
Support email to a dissatisfied merchant	Serious, empathetic, honest, encouraging	"Our process for handling merchant feedback like this is to send a feature request to our design and development teams, who look at this compiled feedback when considering improvements to our themes. This isn't a guarantee, as often times changes like this end up being more work than expected, or sometimes added features will be rejected by Shopify. They review each and every change we make, and if something doesn't pass, it must be redone or removed. It's an involved, non-linear process, but I will absolutely send this request to the appropriate teams and remind them that this is important for our merchants!" < Way to go, Hannah!

As you can see, product copy, blog posts, and support emails require vastly different tones. That's because these types of communications correspond to users with different needs and attitudes. Taking an upbeat, chirpy tone with an unhappy customer isn't going to fly, just as writing product copy riddled with jargon won't net you those sweet, sweet 5-star reviews.

Remember that writing is a conversation. If you're struggling to find the right tone, try reframing the situation: How would you speak to a friend in the same situation?

A quick note about humour

Open up just about any Pixel Union Slack channel (even #apps-dev) and it's pretty obvious that as a group we have a sense of humour. But that doesn't mean you have to be funny in your writing. If a joke comes naturally and makes sense in the context, go for it.

But don't try to be funny just because you think it's part of the Pixel Union brand. Better to keep a straight face than die of embarrassment when your joke falls flat.