Language And Grammar

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GuidancelatestRetrieved 2026-05-16

Atlassian Design — Language and Grammar

Capitalization

Sentence case for all UI: Titles, headings, menu items, labels, buttons — all sentence case.

"Create work item" not "Create Work Item."

Capitalize:

  • Proper nouns: people, companies, apps ("Jira," "Confluence")

Lowercase:

  • Generic features or actions not tied to a proper name

Headings: No bold, no italics, no periods. Minimize question marks. Use action verbs; avoid gerunds (-ing forms).

Articles in UI labels

Omit "a," "an," and "the" in buttons, labels, and action-based headings.

"Create password" not "Create a password."

Abbreviations

  • Use full app and feature names in customer-facing copy
  • Do not use 'e.g.', 'i.e.', 'etc.', or '&' — these do not localize well
  • No apostrophes in plural abbreviations: "1990s" not "1990's"

Bold and italic

Bold: Use sparingly to emphasize key phrases or reference static UI elements (menus, buttons, headings). Avoid over-bolding.

Italic: Use sparingly (difficult to read). For variable field names, user input, or emphasis when bold is unavailable. Never italicize hyperlinks.

Contractions

Use contractions for conversational tone. "We can't load this page" is preferred over "We cannot load this page." Use curly apostrophes in UI copy.

Gender pronouns

Use provided pronouns when known. Default to "they/their" for unknown or unspecified gender. Avoid gendered pronouns in generic instructions.

"Ask your admin to add you" — not "Ask him to add you."

Lists

  • Limit to 6 items where possible
  • Bulleted (fragmented sentences): Lowercase items, no periods, introduce with a colon
  • Bulleted (complete sentences): Capitalized first word, periods at end, no lead-in colon
  • Numbered lists: Capitalized first word, period at end; use for sequential tasks only
  • Use parallel phrasing within any list

Numbers

  • Use digits in most cases
  • Spell out: Numbers that start a sentence, in common expressions, and zero/one (to avoid L/I/O confusion)
  • Ranges: Use "to" not hyphens — "View rows 1 to 4" not "View rows 1-4"
  • Ratios: Use "of" not "/" — "Step 1 of 2" not "Step 1/2"
  • Thousands: Use commas — "4,500" not "4500"

Spelling

US English per Merriam-Webster. "Color" not "colour," "organization" not "organisation."

Tense

Present tense for UI instructions and messages: "We can't load work item DSP-32113."

Past tense for completed actions: "Upload failed," "File created."

Pronouns in UI copy

Minimize overall pronoun use. When using pronouns:

  • Second person ("you/your") for advising users or indicating ownership
  • "Get access to your work items here" — not "the work items"
  • Use "your projects" not "my projects" (never use "my" as a UI label for user-owned content)

Active voice

Default to active voice. "Administrators control access" not "Access is controlled by administrators."

Punctuation

Apostrophes

Show possession normally: "James's work items" for singular proper nouns ending in 's'. Plurals: after 's'. Use curly apostrophes.

Colons

Introduce bulleted lists or step sequences. Do not use at the end of headings.

Commas (Oxford comma)

Use the Oxford comma for all lists of three or more: "Jira, Confluence, Loom, and Bitbucket."

Dashes and hyphens

Em dashes: Use sparingly in UI; prefer rewriting the sentence. Use non-breaking spaces around em dashes.

Hyphens: For compound adjectives before nouns ("system-wide update"). Do not hyphenate after "very" or -ly adverbs. Use to prevent misreading: "re-sign" vs. "resign."

Ranges: Use "to" not hyphens or dashes.

Ellipses

Use the proper ellipsis character (…) without spaces before it: "Work in pro…"

For quotations with omitted material: spaces around the ellipsis — "From medicine … our products help."

Exclamation marks

Avoid in UI copy. Maximum one per page. Avoid in marketing copy as well.

Periods

Use in complete sentences, helper text, messages, and notifications.

Omit from: headers, titles, tooltips, field descriptions, menu names.

One space after a period. If a link ends the sentence, place the period outside the hyperlink.

Quotation marks

In UI: single curly quotes. In body/long-form copy: double quotes for direct speech, single for word definitions. Do not use quotation marks for emphasis — use bold instead.

UI element references in copy

  • Use sentence case in copy even if the UI itself uses title case
  • Bold element names when referenced in instructions
  • Use "then" instead of ">" for navigation sequences: "Go to More, then Link work item"

Localization considerations

Atlassian's language rules are specifically designed to support localization:

  • Omit articles (a/an/the) in UI labels
  • Avoid idioms and colloquialisms
  • Avoid abbreviations that do not translate
  • Use "to" for ranges (word order-safe across languages)
  • Use Oxford comma (reduces ambiguity in translation)