product content designer ⭐ ux writer extraordinaire ⭐ experience & solutions architect

sabrina k. chun

aligning brand voice & tone for specific products

improving products with the power of brand voice & tone

This 12:15 minute video is from a small presentation I gave during our monthly team sync: a refresher and review of our Webex voice and tone and how I’ve shaped it for my products and their specific audience. Back in April 2023, I was the only content designer for Control and Partner Hubs (and later, will be responsible for three more admin platforms).

Our audience

For Control Hub

  • Organization admins, such as IT directors, engineers and developers, support specialists, and operation managers

For Partner Hub

  • Pre-sales engineers, advocates and sellers of Cisco, customer success managers, and technical specialists

The challenge

Until I was hired in 2021, Control Hub and the other admin portals lacked any content direction or guidance and it showed in a very jarring and noticeable way. Because Control Hub manages an organization’s Webex settings and features, product managers owning individual settings or features authored the microcopy, including other designers and engineers. If they’re lucky, maybe a technical writer would come in.

At Cisco, product managers felt fierce ownership over every aspect of their product, including the copy. Despite competitor analysis and research saying otherwise, certain PMs rejected conversational language. As my design hiring manager wryly said, “It’s the wild, wild west out there,” and it was my job to wrangle up the rowdy content.

Tone definition by context

Spirited is positive, cheerful, and enthusiastic. But for Control Hub and its technical users, such as an IT admin looking to quickly troubleshoot, bubbly enthusiasm is reserved for new feature announcements, success confirmations after certain workflows, or onboarding.

Diligent is informative, helpful, and dedicated. This is the tone characteristic I utilize for the majority of the UI content, including but not limited to

  • Alerts

  • Confirmation and information modals

  • Empty states

  • Labels and menus

  • Text fields

  • Tooltips

Being Diligent is especially important for UI text that calls for clear, unambiguous instructions in scannable and easily digestible sections.


Calls out the downtime and lack of product access
Notes that we’ll send email notifications when migration begins, and email updates every 2 hours
Links to an even more in-depth help article

Activating single sign-on is a very technical process that can make or break an entire organization
By utilizing full page wizards with steps, we can break down and explain complexities

Approach

To shape our voice into a reflection of the entire Webex suite audience, the content team and I established four essential characteristics that align with our key brand drivers and design principles. Defining the Webex brand voice, aka our verbal identity, is significant because it informs the words we choose, the information we present, and how people receive what we say.

Our voice stays the same, but the tone changes depending on the audience and situation. We need to sound like Webex, from marketing copy to product content, from stage presence to sales talks, and from website to customer support. Having that content consistency only strengthens a product ecosystem. With the tone table, I identified how various Control Hub components should sound like.

Always improving Proactive, earnest, and always trying our best for:
Alerts
Warning and error messages
Empty states
Already implemented feature announcements