Intuit's Harmony style guide includes voice and tone standards that focus on establishing a friendly and helpful relationship to the customer—not the user—thereby supporting the overall goal of creating harmony.
The design principles for voice and tone support the overall design principles for Harmony. They reflect our Intuit brand voice guidelines, Harmony design principles, SBG Harmony personas, and the ongoing work across the Intuit writing community to create successful messaging patterns.
The guidelines here support the idea of consistency—not uniformity—so that we’re speaking with a harmonized voice. Some variation based on product, device type, and audience is expected.
Humor doesn’t always translate; neither does slang or colloquialisms. Global voice varies by content type. Errors, alerts, and help should be global-neutral so that customers from across cultures don’t misinterpret instructions. Other types, such as first-time use, may need separate versions to maintain our sense of fun and friendship, but be appropriate for each cultural context.