UX Writing

Review and write UI text based on the Material Design 3 style guide.

Workflow

Determine whether the task is a review of existing text or creation of new text, then follow the appropriate workflow.

Review workflow

1. Read the target file(s)
2. Load references/md3-style-guide.md
3. Check all text against the three rule categories:
   • Best practices (consequences, scannability, sentence case, abbreviations)
   • Word choice (second person, pronoun consistency, first-person caution)
   • Grammar and punctuation (periods, contractions, commas, colons, exclamation points, ellipses, parentheses, ampersands, dashes, hyphens, italics, caps)
4. Report each finding in this format:

   file:line — "original text" — [Rule N.N name] — Suggested: "improved text"
   

5. Summarize findings grouped by category

Creation workflow

1. Identify the UI element type (button, error message, dialog, tooltip, label, heading, empty state, notification, menu item, form field)
2. Load references/md3-style-guide.md
3. Apply the rules relevant to the element type:
   • Buttons: Sentence case, skip periods, use contractions, skip ellipses
   • Error messages: Explain consequences, use second person, skip exclamation points
   • Dialogs: Explain consequences, skip periods for single sentences, use contractions
   • Headings/titles: Sentence case, skip colons, use scannable words
   • Labels/tooltips: Sentence case, skip periods, spell out abbreviations
   • Empty states: Use second person, skip exclamation points, explain next steps
   • Notifications: Explain consequences, use second person, use contractions
4. Draft the text
5. Self-check the draft against all applicable rules
6. Present the text with a brief rationale citing the rules applied

Quick reference

Key rules to check first:

Full style guide

For the complete set of 20 rules with Do/Don’t examples, load references/md3-style-guide.md.