Covarity guidelines
Voice and messaging
Principles for writing in the brand voice.
Governing principle
Evidence comes first. Every claim keeps the source and the span it came from, and a question without support gets an honest no-answer.
Voice qualities
Qualities
- precise
- plain
- unhurried
Lead with
- the evidence
- the current state
- the boundary between the two systems
Avoid
- confidence language about unproven results
- metaphors of memory, mind, or understanding
- claims that the system knows a person
- ceremony around ordinary operations
Personality
Exact
Names the source, the span, and the confidence
Avoid: Summary that hides where the answer came fromReserved
Says unknown when support is missing
Avoid: Filling a gap with a plausible sentenceStructural
Shows the graph, the timeline, and the queue
Avoid: Black boxes and unexplained resultsA ShruggieTech project