Platform content standards
Audit, expand, and operationalize content guidelines into a sustainable system for consistent product language.
Audit, expand, and operationalize content guidelines into a sustainable system for consistent product language.
Role
Lead content designer, program manager
Goal
Audit, expand, and operationalize content guidelines into a sustainable system for consistent product language.
Stakeholders
Content Design, Design Systems, Marketing, Accessibility, Localization
Zoom's content guidelines were weak and had grown inconsistent as a result of being under-resourced and lacking a unified ownership model. With ~15 existing guidelines, there was no single source of truth for what was current, missing, or outdated, making it difficult for designers to apply standards consistently at scale.
As Zoom continued to scale, so did the number of teams contributing product copy. While content guidelines existed, they had been created over time without a unified audit process or ownership model.
We needed to answer several questions quickly:
This wasn't just a writing problem—it was a program management and governance problem. And because program management wasn't a skill content designers typically had, I was the only one with experience leading an initiative of this size and complexity. That's why I took on both the content design and the program management work.
We used real-world content design systems—Intuit's Content Design and Atlassian Design—to research industry standards and decide what applied to Zoom and what we needed to build ourselves.
Working audit. No one had a shared view of what existed. We assessed the ~20 guidelines for:
Single source of truth. I built a Coda workspace and ran a solo-then-group brainstorm to capture what we had, what was missing, and who needed to be involved. The page tracked:
Outcome: We could prioritize, align stakeholders, and track progress in one place.
Scale required structure. With a team of five, we needed a cadence that was predictable and sustainable. We:
Outcome: The workload stayed manageable while momentum stayed high.
Drafts moved through review asynchronously. Once a guideline was complete:
Outcome: Drafts moved faster without blocking meetings—only complex issues escalated to sync.
Complex or high-impact decisions got face time. We:
When necessary, we looped in:
I partnered with Design Systems to embed guidelines into the design system; with Engineering on string reviews and technical constraints; and with Product on prioritization and rollout timing. The goal was balancing ideal guidance with what teams could ship.
Outcome: Guidelines were not only well-written but durable and defensible.
Each week followed the same rhythm:
Outcome: The consistency of this cadence allowed us to complete a large volume of work without sacrificing quality.
We built the information architecture in tandem with the audit—as we determined what needed to be added, we structured guidelines into clear categories based on how designers search for answers while writing. The goal was making them findable, scannable, and usable in real workflows from the start.
From that structure, we created an outline of improvements: writing tips, example improvements, inclusive writing, and guideline suggestions—so each area had a clear place in the system.
Once finalized, guidelines were published to Zoom's internal design system site (Google Sites at the time), making them easily accessible to designers and cross-functional partners.
Establishes why and how Zoom communicates—for strategy-first thinking before execution.
Emotional and conversational baseline across product experiences.
Decision-making frameworks for ambiguous situations.
Practical, quick-reference guidance for day-to-day work.
Guidance for accessible, inclusive language across product experiences.
Governs how content behaves in the UI—for direct, tactical answers.
Title case, sentence case, and product-name conventions. See full project →
Hierarchy, emphasis, and scannability.
Numeral usage, accessibility, and localization.
Conventions to reduce ambiguity and maintain clarity.
Appropriate usage, constraints, and edge cases.
Outcome: This separation allowed designers to jump directly to tactical answers without wading through higher-level guidance.
Content guidelines established shared principles for voice, tone, and structure. As teams adopted them, a gap became clear: designers knew what good content looked like—but not how to apply it within real UI components. That gap led directly to the content patterns project—reusable UX patterns for empty states, errors, and other high-traffic components.
Why the component exists and when to use it.
How to structure copy within the component.
Rules tied directly to behavior and user intent.
Considerations for inclusive, global-ready content.
As we created each guideline, we used a checklist of considerations: casing, punctuation, accessibility, and localization callouts. These were content-specific because we were adding guidelines to the design system component page—which was being built in tandem with our work.
Outcome: Content and component guidelines together moved the system from principles to execution—faster decisions, fewer inconsistencies, and content that scaled reliably.
Leading an initiative of this size required both content expertise and program management—a combination that wasn't typical for content designers.
Starting with a structured audit exposed what existed, what was outdated, and what was missing—enabling smarter prioritization.
Ownership, review workflows, and approval cadence enabled sustained delivery—without them, guidelines would drift again.
Async review kept momentum; complex decisions got face time.
This project delivered measurable value for content design and the broader product organization:
Single source of truth
Teams now have a unified, vetted guideline system instead of fragmented, inconsistent documentation.
Reduced decision fatigue
Designers can move faster with confidence, knowing where to find answers for voice, tone, and structure.
Foundation for component guidelines
Laid the groundwork for more specialized systems that apply guidelines directly to each component.
Scalable governance
Established a repeatable workflow for ongoing review and approval as the product evolves.
Content guidelines led directly to component-specific guidelines and UX content patterns.
Platform UX content patterns →