Voice and tone
One voice, four tones. The voice is calm, plain and in the second person, and the register is set by the seriousness of the news rather than by the brand.
The rule
The voice never changes; the tone changes with the status level.
Voice is who we are. It is constant, and in opsinjs it is three things:
- Calm. The voice is not soothing and not upbeat. It is calm. The reader supplies the emotion; the interface supplies the facts. A product that is excited about a step count is a product that will be excited about a bad result unless somebody remembers to write a special case, and somebody will not.
- Plain. Short sentences, common words, one idea each. The vocabulary is fixed by the plain-English A to Z.
- Second person, active, present. "Your reading is higher than usual", not "The patient's reading has been observed to be elevated" and not "We have detected an elevation".
Tone is how that voice sounds in a particular moment, and it moves along one axis: how serious is what we are about to say? That axis is already defined by the four clinical status levels, so tone does not need a second scale of its own.
| Level | Tone | What the sentence must do |
|---|---|---|
steady | Matter-of-fact, brief | State the fact and stop. Do not congratulate. |
watch | Neutral, specific | State the fact, give the comparison, say what would make it matter. |
attention | Direct, unhurried | State the fact first, then the single action, then the reassurance if there is a true one. |
urgent | Short, imperative, unadorned | The action first. Nothing decorative. No brand voice at all. |
Clinical status semantics is where the canonical meaning of each level lives. It says what each level asserts, who assigns it, and what it must never be read as. This page only says how each one sounds.
Two things the voice never does
It never celebrates a health number. Confetti for a blood-pressure reading is a product telling somebody that their body is a score. It also creates an implicit failure state for the days they do not get it, in a population that includes people whose numbers will never improve.
It never reassures with a claim it cannot support. "This is nothing to worry about" is a clinical judgement. "One high reading on its own is common" is a statement about readings. Only the second is available to us.
Approved / Rejected
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
The third pair is the one worth studying. At the urgent level, brand voice is a
liability: hedging verbs ("we'd recommend"), abstraction ("medical attention")
and softeners ("as soon as possible") all add milliseconds and ambiguity to the
one moment where neither is affordable. Emergency wording is governed by
Emergency and escalation, which is
canonical for it.
Patterns
Fill in the marked parts. Each pattern is written for one status level.
steady for a value in range
Your
measurewasvalueunitonwhen. That is in your usual range.
watch for a value drifting
Your
measurehas beendirectionthan usual forduration. On its own this is not unusual. It is worth mentioning at your next appointment.
attention for a value that needs something done
Your
measurewasvalueunit, which iscomparisonyour usual range.single action.true reassurance, if there is one.
urgent when the reader must act now
Action.How.What to say when you get there.
Any level when you introduce a clinical term the reader will meet elsewhere
Clinical termmeansplain-English explanation. You may see this on yourletter / results / prescription.
Length
One idea per sentence, and at most three sentences before the reader has to act or scroll. If a paragraph needs a fourth sentence, it is explanation, and explanation goes below the answer rather than in front of it.
Banned words
| Banned | Why | Use instead |
|---|---|---|
| great news, congratulations, well done, amazing | Turns a measurement into a moral score. | state the reading and its comparison |
| nothing to worry about | A clinical judgement dressed as reassurance. | a specific true fact about frequency or context |
| we'd recommend, you may wish to, consider | Hedging that removes the action. | the imperative: "contact your GP" |
| unfortunately, sadly, I'm afraid | Editorialises the reader's news for them. | delete |
| our algorithm, our AI, the system | Puts a machine between the reader and their own data. | name what was measured and how |
| patient, user, subject | Nobody reading a consumer app calls themselves this. | you |
| medical attention | Abstraction at the exact moment specificity is needed. | the specific service and how to reach it |
Related components
AlertBannertakes the tone table above as its content contract. The level drives both the wording and the colour, and they may never disagree.CareCardcarries advice, so it is where the "no clinical judgement" rule bites hardest.StatusPillhas the word for the level, taken from the fixed vocabulary and nowhere else. "Needs attention" is two words and is still the word; what is forbidden is a synonym, a brand phrase or a sentence.DisclaimerNoteis the standing reminder of what this product is not. Its voice is plain and its tone never apologetic.