Logomark for Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), a bright red shape resembling a flowerDBS Digital
Design System

From transactional to magical with language

Language is the simplest way to inject emotion into our digital products. When we speak with warmth and empathy, we take our products from transactional to magical.

What’s here

    Featured articles

    1. Talk to me like humans do

      Article
    2. Different audiences, different tone

      Article
    3. Anatomy of error messages

      Case study
    4. Can a bank sound friendly and professional

      Research
    5. I’d rather talk to humans

      Audio

    Brief, unsolicited advice for busy people

    You're busy. We know! If you do nothing else, do this:

    • Write like you were talking to a friend.
    • Say what you’ve written out loud or use something like NaturalReader. Does it sound strange? Re-write.
    • Get rid of fancy words, jargon, acronyms and make your sentences short. Use Readable or another tool to check readability rating.
    • We tend to write in an overly formal, old-fashioned and abstract manner when we have bad news to deliver. Don’t add insult to injury by wasting the reader’s time with hard-to-understand formalities.

    Things you don’t need:

    • A new playbook for your particular product. We should all follow Live more, Bank less voice and tone guidelines. It is important that we have a consistent brand voice.
    • An acronym for your new playbook (CJ, CSA, DG, IA, JTBD, DCO, OLAF, RPQ, WMBS, HLE, PSC, MBJ, SLA, SOW, WTF 🙈.) If you ever feel like inventing a new, snazzy acronym, think about your colleagues—existing and new ones—who will have to learn yet another one. And, just for fun, see what Elon Musk thinks about acronyms.
    • ‘Verbiage reviews.’ We need to have a holistic approach to building our digital products. Our customers don’t look at content or design, they just look at the end product—a single app. That is why content designers and UX designers need to work closely together from the very beginning and their work should be reviewed together, in the same meetings

    Watch the story of what we do

    Take a break from reading. Enjoy this little film about content designers.

    Dive deeper into content guidelines

    1. DBS voice & tone

    2. Style guide

    3. Content design

    4. Localisation

    5. Writing error messages

    6. Inclusive content


    Looking for help to make your words work?

    First, take a look at what type of help we can offer. Then, if you have a specific request, fill out our content request form.

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