Archive for the Writing Category

An open source UX writing example from Mastodon

By Tom Resing on November 7, 2022 / Content design, Writing / Leave a comment

Unlike Twitter, Mastodon developers use an open-source model. Open-source means, if you take the effort to, you can see the source of the messages you see on screen. Because Mastodon is an open-source app developed on GitHub, you can create an issue when you see something wrong. The following screenshot highlights some text I see on my Mastodon home page, “Pinned post”, followed by a screenshot of the same string, in code. The next screenshot shows the same message “Pinned post”, in the file

King County, Washington – Make an informed vote

By Tom Resing on October 16, 2020 / Community, Writing / Leave a comment

Tags: voting

King County, Washington – Make an informed vote

Today, October 16th, 2020, nearly 1.4 million registered voters in King County, Washington should have their ballots and voting guides from the state and county. The amount of information can be overwhelming. If you’re like me, you have 39 different items to vote on. Take some time to read the words on the printed pages you’ve received. Voting is one of the top ways to make your voice heard in the United States. We’re so lucky to live in cities

Words can save lives

By Tom Resing on June 29, 2020 / Writing / 1 Comment

Tags: coronavirus

Disputes delayed early reporting On January 27th, 2020, Dr. Camilla Rothe discovered Germany’s first case of the new coronavirus. The case involved one person at risk for the virus. According to the New York Times, the visitor from China had “no coughing or sneezing, no signs of fatigue or fever.” Coronaviruses were only known to be contagious from people showing symptoms. Confusion over the words used to describe this case caused delays. Thousands of people who caught the virus from

More on UI Text Design

By Tom Resing on January 18, 2018 / Microsoft, Writing / 6 Comments

Tags: ui text design, voice

Today, Episode 46 of the MS Cloud IT Pro Podcast was published. I was the guest and our conversation included some discussion of UI Text Design. UI Text Design was new to me a year ago and it’s something you don’t hear about every day, so I thought I’d share some more on the role. The screenshot above shows the list view drop down in SharePoint. Even as I look at it now, I see UI text that doesn’t follow