Copy guidelines

This guide explains how Sustentus speaks — the philosophy behind the language used across the six role-based dashboards. It is for anyone writing, reviewing, or questioning UI copy: developers, product, and design.

The product has a point of view

Sustentus dashboards are not neutral. They do not report data and leave interpretation to the user. They have already decided what matters, who is responsible, and what should happen next. The copy reflects that.

Every piece of text in the product answers one of three questions:

1. What is the situation? — name the state clearly, with its consequence
2. Who is responsible? — attribute problems and actions to a specific actor
3. What happens now? — surface the implied next move

A number without a consequence is not copy. “3 blockers” tells a CSM nothing useful. “Blocked go lives · Revenue at risk now” tells them something is broken, it is costing money, and they need to act. The product bridges data and meaning.

Five principles

1. Specificity over vagueness

Every problem is named, attributed, and dated. The product never lets responsibility be anonymous.

“Customer has not approved API access credentials, which prevents integration starting”

Not: “Integration blocked.” The blocker has a cause, an actor, and a consequence. Copy that describes a problem vaguely signals that the product does not understand it.

2. Consequence alongside state

The product never leaves a fact standing alone. Every state has a consequence paired with it — financial, temporal, or operational.

“Delivery delayed 7+ days, SLA breach confirmed”

Not: “Delivery delayed.” The consequence is always present because that is what turns information into something a professional can act on. If the consequence is obvious, it is still named.

3. Attribution — name the actor

Blockers, decisions, and actions belong to someone. The product always surfaces who.

“3 blocked by customer · 2 blocked by expert · 1 blocked by vendor”

Not: “6 blockers.” Named actors create accountability. The user knows exactly where to apply pressure and cannot diffuse responsibility across a vague “blockers” count.

4. Pre-judged urgency

The product has already sorted, filtered, and ranked. It does not give the user a neutral view and ask them to decide what matters. It shows them what matters first, and explains its reasoning.

“Red and Amber only · Sorted by urgency · Every row = one problem to solve”

This is the CSM dashboard describing itself in its own subheader. It has made a decision. The user’s time is not spent deciding how to sort — it is spent acting on what the product has already surfaced.

5. Success is understated

When things are going well, the product confirms it plainly. It does not celebrate. It reassures.

“No configuration gaps — platform is fully set up”

“All accounts are moving — no action required right now”

These lines are matter-of-fact. The product treats being on track as the default, not as an achievement. Celebratory language would be patronising to domain professionals. The em dash construction — [state] — [consequence or confirmation] — is the standard pattern for positive states.

Voice by persona

The product’s core personality is constant — direct, consequential, specific. But the tone adjusts to reflect each persona’s relationship with the data and their power to act.

Admin — procedural and firm

The admin controls platform configuration before anyone else can work. The language is authoritative and imperative.

“Required configuration for platform operation” “Missing items that must be resolved before going live” “What needs to be configured”

The admin copy does not soften or hedge. “Must” appears because it is true. Configuration gaps are not “suggestions” — they block the business. The tone matches the stakes.

CSM — commanding and pressure-aware

The CSM applies pressure to move accounts to go live. Their dashboard is an operational command centre. The language creates urgency and agency.

“Blocked go lives” “Revenue at risk now” “Fix now” “Apply pressure to the right actor · Push accounts to value”

The CSM copy speaks to someone who has the authority and responsibility to unblock things immediately. “Fix now” is a directive, used only in this context, on genuinely critical states. The verb is short, the target is a person or problem, and the implication is: act before this gets worse.

SDM — supply and demand, without sentiment

The SDM manages expert capacity and bid readiness across the vendor’s pipeline. Their copy is mechanical and factual — capacity, shortfall, coverage.

“Revenue at risk” “Gaps not covered” “Cannot quote” “Weak bid”

There is no emotional register here. The SDM is looking at a supply problem. The language reflects that: categorical, quantified, unambiguous. “Weak bid” does not explain why it is weak — that is for the underlying data. The label names the condition.

Vendor — causal and revenue-focused

The vendor views the platform through the lens of revenue retention and growth. Their language connects operational activity to financial outcome.

“Revenue grows when delivery is fast and customers are successful” “Service revenue performance driven by delivery” “Faster delivery drives retention”

This is the most explicitly causal register in the product. The vendor does not just see retention numbers — they see why those numbers move. The copy makes the mechanism visible. “Revenue grows when” is a hypothesis the product proves or disproves with the data on screen.

Expert — terse and task-oriented

The expert is executing work. Their language is minimal. The dashboard is a queue.

“Work ready for me” “Go live workbench” “Do the work” “Respond”

Every word earns its place. The expert does not need context about business consequences — they need to know what to do next. Action labels are verbs, often single words. The copy reflects the expert’s relationship with the product: transactional, focused, time-pressured.

Customer — transparent and forward-looking

The customer has the least domain knowledge of any persona. The language is the most accessible — outcome-oriented, reassuring, and always pointing toward completion.

“What is happening” “What could go wrong” “At completion you will have…” “No blockers — project on track”

Customer copy avoids internal terminology. “Blocking party” becomes implicit context; “what could go wrong” replaces “risk flags”. The voice is transparent: the product tells the customer what they actually want to know, not how the internal team labels it. Positive states are warmly stated rather than technically confirmed.

Urgency

Urgency is expressed through specificity and consequence, not through volume or exclamation. The product never shouts. It quantifies.

The model is: what is wrong + who caused it + how long + what it costs.

“7 days under pressure · Overdue 1 day · £33,600 at risk”

This is more urgent than “URGENT: action required” because it is specific. Domain professionals respond to numbers and accountability, not rhetorical emphasis.

Urgency language — “Fix now”, “Revenue at risk”, “Blocking go live” — is reserved for genuinely critical states. If these phrases appear on neutral cards, they lose meaning across the whole product.

Empty states

Empty states are one of the most revealing pieces of copy in any product. They tell users whether the product understands their job.

The rules are simple:

• Success states confirm and move on. “No configuration gaps — platform is fully set up.” The product does not dwell on the positive; it confirms and implies you can proceed.
• True empty states explain and open a path. “No users yet — invite your first team member.” The user knows why it is empty and what to do.
• Filter empty states are neutral. “No items match this filter.” No consequence, no action needed — the user just filtered aggressively.

Never write “No data available” or “Nothing here.” These phrases communicate that the product does not know what to say. The product always knows what an empty state means in context.

The sentence case rule

All UI text — headings, labels, button text, badges, placeholders, table headers, navigation — is written in sentence case. This is the only capitalisation rule and it has no exceptions beyond proper acronyms.

✓ Go live demand · Configuration gaps · View accounts ✗ Go Live Demand · Configuration Gaps · View Accounts

Acronyms (SLA, NRR, CSAT, BRD) are always fully uppercased. They appear without expansion inline — users of this product know them. Where a definition is needed, it belongs in a tooltip.

What to avoid

Vague problem descriptions. “Issue detected” is not copy. Name the problem, its cause, and its consequence.

Anonymous blockers. Always attribute. “Customer has not responded” not “response pending.”

Urgency on non-critical states. “Fix now” means nothing if it appears on informational cards. Reserve pressure language for genuinely critical states.

Title case. It signals the product is trying to look important rather than be useful.

Celebratory empty states. “Great job, no gaps!” treats on-track as an achievement. “No configuration gaps — platform is fully set up” treats it as the default. Be the latter.

Data without consequence. A number is not copy. Pair every metric with what it means for the business.