Content design

Voice

Voice is the product’s personality, the same on every screen. BigBang’s voice has four traits:

Trait	What it means	What it is not
Clear	One sentence, one idea. The reader understands on first read.	Technical codes, internal team language, piles of abbreviations
Calm	States the situation as it is, without exaggerating.	Exclamation marks, shouting in capitals, alarm
Respectful	Respects the reader’s time and knowledge; never blames.	“You entered it wrong”, “Invalid operation!”
Helpful	Gives the way out together with the problem.	Only “An error occurred”

Tone

Voice does not change; tone adjusts to the situation. Think of where the reader is right now: did they finish something, are they stuck, are they about to lose something?

Situation	Tone	Example (TR)	Example (EN)
Success	Short, factual	Değişiklikler kaydedildi.	Changes saved.
Information	Neutral, informative	Rapor her pazartesi 09.00’da hazırlanır.	The report is ready every Monday at 09:00.
Warning	Careful, says why	Bu ayarı değiştirirseniz ekibinizdeki herkes yeniden oturum açar.	If you change this setting, everyone on your team signs in again.
Error	Calm, solution first	Dosya yüklenemedi. 10 MB’tan küçük bir dosya seçin.	The file could not be uploaded. Choose a file smaller than 10 MB.
Destructive confirmation	Plain, states the result	Bu rapor kalıcı olarak silinir.	This report will be deleted permanently.
Empty state	Guiding	Henüz rapor yok. İlk raporunuzu oluşturun.	No reports yet. Create your first report.

On screens about money and security, the tone is always factual: no jokes, exclamation marks or celebration.

Address

• Address the reader as “you”; in Turkish “siz”. Do not use gendered address (I18N-26).
• Name the actor and use the active voice: “Your team admin removed this access”, not “Access has been removed”.
• Do not write “please” in instructions. A plain imperative is not rude, it is clear: “Enter your password”.
• The product may refer to itself as “we”; on a system error, own it: “Something went wrong and we could not save your changes.”
• The brand name is never written into the interface; it comes from the {brandName} variable (D-12).

Turkish grammar

• Use the simple present. “Rapor her gün güncellenir”, not “güncellenmektedir”. Avoid “-mektedir”, “gerçekleştirilir” and “sağlanmaktadır”.
• Write short sentences. Interface text is at most 18 words, body text at most 25 (WR-19).
• Apostrophe: Suffixes on proper nouns, abbreviations and numerals are separated by an apostrophe: “BigBang’in”, “PDF’i”, “2026’da”, “%12’lik”. Common nouns take no apostrophe.
• Do not add suffixes to variables. A suffix such as {brandName}'e can come out wrong depending on the last letter of the name. Build the sentence so it needs no suffix: “{brandName} hesabınız”, “{brandName} uygulamasına”.
• “de/da” and “ki”: As conjunctions, “de/da” and “ki” are written separately: “Rapor da hazır”. The question particle “mı/mi” is written separately: “Kaydedilsin mi?”
• Write numbers as numerals: “3 dosya”, not “üç dosya”. If a sentence starts with a number, rebuild it.
• Spell out an abbreviation on first use: “tek kullanımlık şifre (OTP)” (WR-24). Common abbreviations (PDF, URL) are not spelled out.
• Write Turkish directly in Turkish. Avoid structures that read as translated from English: “Rapor silinir” instead of “Bu, raporu silecektir”.

English grammar

• English text uses en-GB spelling: colour, organisation, licence (noun), cancelled (WR-26). The product’s English formatting is en-GB as well (I18N-15).
• Active voice and short sentences; “use” instead of “utilise” or “leverage” (WR-14).
• Common contractions are fine in the interface: “don’t”, “can’t”. Not in legal text.
• Do not write “please” or “click here” (WR-05, WR-18).
• No comma before the last item of a list: “reports, tables and charts”. Add one if the meaning would be unclear.

Capitalisation

• Sentence case: Page titles, section headings, buttons, labels, menu items and tabs capitalise only the first letter. The same in both languages: “Hesap ayarları”, “Account settings” (WR-06).
• Proper nouns: Names of people, organisations, products and components keep their own spelling: “BigBang”, “Storybook”, “TextInput”. In Turkish, TDK proper-noun rules apply.
• All capitals only for abbreviations (PDF, IBAN). Do not use capitals for emphasis.
• Turkish letters: Convert to upper case with toLocaleUpperCase('tr-TR'); “i” becomes “İ” and “ı” becomes “I” (I18N-09). CSS text-transform: uppercase is only right when the element carries the correct lang; do not use it in the interface.

Button and link text

• A button starts with a verb, has no period and no emoji: “Save”, “Download report” (WR-28).
• Keep it between one and three words. Button text says what will happen: “Delete”, “Send” instead of “OK” or “Yes”.
• In a confirmation dialog the button repeats the action in the title: title “Delete report?”, button “Delete”.
• The cancelling button is “Cancel” everywhere, never “Dismiss” or “Never mind” (see Glossary).
• Link text says where it goes: “See report settings”. “Click here” and a bare “More” are not used.

Error message pattern

Every error message answers three questions in this order. Write the second one only when it helps the reader.

1. What happened? State the fact: “The file could not be uploaded.”
2. Why? When the reader needs to know: “The file is larger than 10 MB.”
3. What now? Give the way out: “Choose a smaller file.”

Field errors

A field error appears under the field, tied to it, and only says what to do.

Situation	Pattern (TR)	Pattern (EN)
Required field empty	{Etiket} girin. / {Etiket} seçin.	Enter {label}. / Select {label}.
Wrong format	E-posta adresini ad@alanadi.com biçiminde girin.	Enter an email address like name@domain.com.
Too short	En az 8 karakter girin.	Enter at least 8 characters.
Too long	En çok 60 karakter girin.	Enter no more than 60 characters.
Out of range	1 ile 31 arasında bir gün girin.	Enter a day between 1 and 31.
Date in the past	Bugün ya da sonrası için bir tarih seçin.	Choose today or a later date.
Does not match	Şifreler aynı değil. İkinci alana aynı şifreyi girin.	The passwords do not match. Enter the same password in the second field.

Page and system errors

• An error from the server maps to a message by its RFC 9457 type; raw error codes and stack traces are never shown. A reference number for support may be shown.
• When a form has more than one error, a linked error summary shows at the top of the form and focus moves to it.
• An error heading is not “Error!”; it states the fact: “Changes could not be saved”.
• A connection or server problem is not the reader’s fault: not “You lost connection” but “We could not connect. Check your internet connection and try again.”

The file could not be uploaded. Choose a file smaller than 10 MB.

DoSays what happened and what to do.

Error! Invalid file.

Don'tBlames the reader and gives no way out.

Empty-state copy

An empty state shows when an area has nothing to display. There are four kinds; each needs different copy.

Kind	Title	Description	Action
First use	No reports yet	Reports are prepared for the period you choose.	Create report
No results (search, filter)	No results found	Try another word or clear the filters.	Clear filters
All done	No new notifications	New items show up here when something happens.	None
No access	You do not have permission to see this area	Ask your team admin for access.	None

Rules:

• The title states the situation without blaming: “No reports yet”, not “You have not created any reports”.
• The description is one sentence that says why it is empty or when it will fill.
• At most one primary action. If there is no action, leave out the button.
• When an illustration is used, the copy carries the full meaning without it (see Illustration).

Notification and confirmation copy

• A success notification is short and in the past tense: “Report downloaded.” If the action can be undone, add an “Undo” action.
• A notification is at most two lines. If a longer explanation is needed, use an inline alert instead.
• The title of a destructive confirmation is a question that names the object: “Delete report?” The body states the result that cannot be undone.

Length and space

Element	Limit
Button	1-3 words
Page title	At most 60 characters
Field label	1-4 words; no colon
Helper text	One sentence
Notification	At most two lines
Empty-state description	One sentence

English and Turkish text lengths differ. Build the interface for text that grows by 40 %; do not force a fixed width or a single line (I18N-35).

Punctuation

• Do not use exclamation marks.
• Helper text, errors and descriptions that are full sentences end with a full stop; titles, labels and buttons do not.
• The ellipsis (…) is one character and only shows work in progress: “Loading…”.
• Use “ ” as quotation marks in both Turkish and English.

Guidelines

Write buttons that say what will happen

Delete report?Delete

DoThe button names the action; the reader can decide without reading the title.

Are you sure?Yes

Don't"Yes" does not say what is being confirmed.

Avoid stiff formal language

Changes saved.

DoShort, present tense, active voice.

Your operation has been successfully completed.

Don'tLong and formal; slows reading down.