Writing

The voice, how each element is worded, and the words that are easy to get two ways.

Words are part of the component. A button with the wrong label is the wrong button. The voice is plain, short and specific, in sentence case: it sounds like a person who knows the product and has no time to waste, yours included.

The voice#

Say what happens: Name the result, not the mechanism. Publish to visitors, not Push changes.
Short: The fewest words that are still clear. If a sentence survives losing a word, lose it.
Specific: A number, a name, a date. 3 tasks are overdue, not Some items need attention.
Calm: No exclamation marks, no apologies for things that are fine, no blame when something fails. The product did not find the file; the user did not do it wrong.
One word per thing: Whatever a thing is called in one place, it is called everywhere. A project never becomes a workspace two screens later.
Sentence case: One capital at the start, proper names keep theirs. No Title Case, no all caps, no full stop on a label or a button.
Plain punctuation: Full stops and commas. No em dashes, no semicolons in an interface.

By element#

Where	How it is written	Write	Not
Button	A verb and its object.	Send for approval	Submit
Destructive confirm	The verb again, with what it destroys.	Delete project	Yes
Dialog title	The question or the task, in the user's words.	Delete Brand refresh?	Are you sure?
Empty state	What goes here, then how to get the first one.	No tasks yet. Add the first goal for this month.	Nothing to show
Error	What happened, then how to fix it.	The file is over 20 MB. Export it smaller and try again.	Upload error
Field label	A noun, no colon, no question.	Work email	What is your email?:
Placeholder	An example of a valid value.	name@studio.com	Enter your email
Toast	What just happened, past tense, with Undo if it can be.	Project archived	Success!
Loading	The action, with an ellipsis.	Saving…	Please wait
Tooltip	The name of the control.	Archive	Click to archive this item

Word list#

The words that are easy to get two ways. The first 5 are Sphere Kit's own.

Use	Not	Why
Studio Sphere	A designer's name, to a client	The client talks to the studio as one. Names appear only where a project turns them on.
Suggestion	AI suggestion, auto task	Something read out of a conversation is a proposal a person accepts. The product never says AI.
Open, Pending, In review, Done	Blocked, On hold, Almost done	Four statuses, always in this order. Pending means waiting for input, never finished.
Goal	Ticket, issue, request	What a client adds is the outcome they want. It becomes a task when it lands in a cycle.
Post as Studio Sphere	Send, Reply	The button says who the client will see as the sender.
Delete	Remove, for things that are destroyed	Delete destroys. Remove takes something off a list and leaves it where it lives.
Sign in, sign out	Log in, login, logout	One pair everywhere. Sign up creates the account.
Cancel	Close, No, Back	Cancel leaves a task without saving. Close shuts something that had nothing to save.
Save changes	Apply, OK, Done	Says that something is stored. Done is for a flow that has already saved.
…	...	One character. It marks more to come, in a menu entry or a state still working.
12 Nov, 3 days ago	11/12/2026, 2026-11-12T09:00	A date nobody has to decode. Relative up to a week, then the day and month.
1,250 and 18.5 h	1250.00, 18.50000	Grouped thousands, the precision the reader needs, the unit next to it.
You, your	The user, my	The interface talks to one person. Their things are yours, never mine.

Rules#

An empty state says what to do next

It names what belongs here and offers the one action that fills it. It never describes how empty it is.

No tasks yet. Add the first goal for this month.

Do. What this place is for, and the first step.

No data found.

Don't. A fact about the list, and nowhere to go from it.

An error never blames and never shrugs

Say what happened in the product's terms and give the way out. Codes and stack traces belong in the log.

That link has expired. Ask for a new invite.

Do. The cause and the fix, in one breath.

Oops! Something went wrong (E_401). Please try again later.

Don't. An apology, a code and nothing to do.

The confirm repeats the action

The button in a dialog says what it will do, so it can be read without the text above it.

Do. Each button is a full answer.

Don't. Yes to what? The reader has to go back up and read the question again.