A brief intro….• Started working at Microsoft in 1999 editing

instructor-led training and elearning

• In 2007, moved to Windows Phone as the lead editor

• Defined and implemented the voice for Windows Phone 7 in the user interface and on windowsphone.com

• A member of the Microsoft Editorial Board since 2010

• Voice

• Microsoft’s culture

• Collaboration

• Communication

Why I’m here today…

Voice

Why is voice important?

…And what customers think of it

Windows voice now…

Sometimes it’s too techy. It’ll give you messages that I don’t know what the heck that means.

The monotonous professorthat puts you to sleep, that’s smart and knows what you need to know, or tries to tell you what you need to know, but still puts you to sleep.

Ben Stein. Bueller. Bueller. Bueller…

Monotone. Mechanical. Robotic.

That geek dude with the khakis and the glasses on the Mac commercial.

Brief but informative.

It’s useful and it’s powerful. It’s acceptable. It does the job, but there’s nothing flashy about it.

It’s the unfinished frame of a house…it protects you from the rain, it has a door, keeps things private…but that doesn’t mean it has paint on the walls, or decorations, or whatever else can make something feel more homey and make you feel more comfortable.

It’s like owning a 1990s Honda Civic versus a 2012 Audi S4.

It’s both easy and helpful and frustrating at the same time.

Old vs new

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Before After

What customers want….

The new voice of Windows

More natural. More like a person

It’s not humor, per se, it’s just more personal

It would be quiet. It would be kind of meek and timid until I had a problem.

More like a humancomputer talking to you in a very easy, comfortable way…it’s just easier, more comfortable.

It’s talking to you like you're somebody

Windows Phone examples

Startup wizard

All done. Have fun!

Progress text

We’re looking for your settings…and we found them!

Made up of distinct organizations with their own cultures, processes, and tools

Microsoft’s culture

How do you get a huge organization to shift its thinking around voice and the power of words to affect customers?

Devs don’t say apps?!!

Greater need to collaborate across the company to ensure we’re evolving with the industry

• Email vs. e-mail

• Web vs. web

• Use of we and contractions

• Use of valid, error, and item

Style battles

Example interlude

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Before After

Before After

Which would you rather read?

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indicate an equality comparison operator for either text or a value, type the criteria as a string expression in the appropriate cell in the criteria range:

When you enter =text in a

cell, Excel interprets it as

a formula and tries to

calculate it. To enter =text

so Excel doesn’t try to

calculate it, use this

syntax:

Friendlier voice

Each time Maps requests your location, Microsoft will collect information about your location to provide and improve location services. This information is not used to identify or contact you.

Sharing this information helps us provide and improve your mapping and local search services. We won’t use the info to identify or contact you.

Before After

• Within Microsoft, a trend toward more customer-focused design

• Design no longer decided solely by engineers, but a collaboration between designers, writers, and engineers

Collaboration in design

In parallel, movement in Microsoft Branding to create a cohesive message across all consumer communications

Collaboration in branding

• Original guidelines genericized writing for easier translation

• Moving to a new voice means making it more personal, but also more difficult to translate

Collaboration in localization

• Writers worked hand-in-hand with the localization team to define the new voice

• Implemented best practices, like providing an “alternate loc text,” a more generic version of a string

• Translators given more freedom and flexibility to reflect the locale

Translating Windows Phone

Microsoft style resources

Content publishing teams have 3 resources for style

arbitration

Microsoft Editorial Board

Microsoft Manual of Style

Community Forum

• A group of ~10 writers and editors

• Monthly meetings

• Owns updates to Microsoft Manual of Style (MMS)

• Final decision maker for company-wide style guidelines, communicated through email list

Microsoft Editorial Board

Microsoft Manual of Style

• What you see in MMS is the end result of a major

coordination between different groups to align on

how we (Microsoft) refer to natural user interaction

• Effort driven out of the “new” Microsoft

technologies, Games, Xbox, Surface, and Phone

Click or tap? Say or type?

• Representatives from groups implementing new voice meeting regularly to share resources

• Creation of a company-wide website that will include examples and resources available to all content publishers

• Members of v-team acting as ambassadors and resources to teams who are looking to implement new voice

Virtual voice team

Amazon

O’Reilly

Questions?