Voice and tone

The Dynatrace voice is the unique personality we present through our content's style, language, and tone. An authentic Dynatrace voice is essential for representing our organizational personality and values. A consistent voice enhances the quality and coherence of our messaging, which promotes familiarity, trust, and lasting relationships with our customers.

Personality, voice, and tone

The Dynatrace personality is the foundation of our brand identity, encompassing the distinctive characteristics, traits, and values that set Dynatrace apart. The Dynatrace voice builds on our strong and consistent personality. We vary the tone of our voice to adapt communications to specific contexts, audiences, and purposes and to convey an appropriate attitude.

The Dynatrace personality is confident, approachable, and empowering.

Write in the Dynatrace voice

Our voice and tone guidelines help you convey the Dynatrace personality by illustrating what it means to express confidence, approachability, and empowerment through our content.

Express confidence through your writing

Confidence is at the core of our brand personality. We firmly believe in our expertise and leadership while avoiding arrogance and false claims. Our communication is assured, purposeful, and honest. We believe in speaking our minds and challenging the status quo with innovation and integrity.

Every aspect of our communications is purposeful. Every sentence, every visual, and every detail carries our intention.

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Show confidence when marketing our platform, documenting Dynatrace, recruiting new Dynatracers, and helping users take action.

• Be clear and concise. Describe with precision and without hyperbole. Omit unnecessary details.
• Be concrete and decisive. Provide well-reasoned content with examples and data—clearly state possibilities and outcomes without hedging or waffling.
• Be honest and transparent. Don't sugarcoat bad news or take undue credit for good news. Be upfront and take responsibility.
• Be pragmatic. When there's an issue, explain why and share known solutions. Anticipate user questions and provide answers.
• Use active voice. Active statements convey authority, transparency, and are easier to read. Passive voice often comes off as sounding defensive.
• Be direct. Address users clearly and directly. State facts and explanations in straightforward declarative sentences. Use imperative verbs when providing instructions to users. Use only simple tenses (past, present, and future) and avoid progressive tenses.

Express approachability through your writing

Our approachability as domain experts connects us with our users. While our platform is powerful and complex, we make it accessible. We use friendly, conversational language while remaining professional; we're warm and familiar. We express professionalism while avoiding corporate speak.

We help users reach their goals and educate them. We're open-minded and considerate. We keep things casual and conversational by using clear language and intuitive visual designs. While showing fallibility is appropriate if we’ve made a mistake, sloppiness is never tolerated.

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Express approachability when onboarding users, marketing our platform, and offering explanations.

• Use familiar terminology. Use appropriate words for each situation and avoid insincere corporate platitudes. Favor short, simple terms and use them consistently.
• Keep it simple. Make one point per sentence. Limit each paragraph to one clear idea or concept. Strive for scannable content types (tables, lists, charts) and break up blocks of text into small paragraphs.
• Use plain English. Keep your language conversational but professional. Stay away from filler words, unnecessary parentheticals, and internal technical jargon.
• Use contractions. Common contractions such as "it's" and "we're" convey a conversational tone.
• Address users as “you.” Use a second-person point of view to build a relationship with users ("you" and "your"). Use the first person plural ("we," "our," and "us") when referring to ourselves, the employees of Dynatrace.
• Be inclusive. Respect the diversity of our users and be sensitive to differences.

Use your writing to empower

We empower each other and our customers, partners, and end users. We’re passionate about our platform, culture, and ability to adapt. We're motivated by what we do and our desire to support our customers in achieving success. We embrace challenges and believe in the power of collaboration and autonomy to reach goals. We understand how our users think, what they need, and their problems. We simplify complexity, providing users with context and explanations that encourage exploration and innovation.

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Express empowerment when encouraging users to explore Dynatrace capabilities, address challenges, and achieve their goals.

• Be helpful. Enable users to figure things out by providing the right content in the right place and time.
• Provide context. Explain the reasons behind decisions, actions, or outcomes.
• Write from the user's perspective. Be a user advocate. Address user needs in content. Make it easy for the user to find the information they need. Front-load sentences with important details and write for scannability.
• Focus on accessibility. Not all users interact with our content in the same way. Ensure content is accessible to screen readers; provide images with meaningful descriptions and alt text.
• Avoid jargon and internal terminology. Imprecise or unclear terminology can lead users to second-guess their actions and decisions. Be sure to consolidate all variant terms for a concept and use only approved platform terminology.
• Describe value. It's not enough for users to know how Dynatrace works; to feel empowered, they must also understand the value that Dynatrace provides and how it makes their jobs easier. Help our users and customers become part of the Dynatrace story. Be authentic and relatable.
• Be kind and avoid negativity. Don't blame the user. Explain what went wrong, why, and how the user can resolve any issues they encounter.