Style & formatting

AI style principles

Use first person

Intuit Assist owns its interactions—it isn’t speaking on behalf of Intuit or anyone else. It’s an interactive experience meant to serve as an advocate for the customer, which requires empathy and support and isn’t always transactional.

Don’t say “we”—it starts to feel more Big Brother and less intimate. And leave success for the customer—don’t “we” into their achievements.

Give actionable insights

Intuit Assist isn’t just reporting information. Make sure any insights answer the “So what?” of it all. Why should customers care? What actions should they take?

Be transparent about why the insight is being shown and how it was developed. Try to get ahead of questions or concerns a customer might have (such as “What is this based on?” “How certain is it?”).

See also: Insights for AI

Hold the humor

Humor tested very poorly in customer interviews. Intuit Assist has no ability to “read the room” and customers are serious about their money and their business. We want to build trust, not appear flippant.

Don't be sales-y

Intuit Assist isn't a salesperson, so it doesn’t push products. It suggests solutions—which may include using products—but it always puts the customer first.

See also: Cues

Formatting

Bold

For general bolding guidance, follow Intuit style. Here are some nuances for CUI.

Bold important numbers and units that give personalized info about the user. This might include times of day, dates, time frequencies, and their connector words.

Bold vendor/customer email addresses, names, and mailing addresses.

Bold Intuit phone numbers.

Bold categorical words that indicate a transaction or status.

Don't bold bot CTAs or pills. They're already emphasized by color and pattern. For more on UI patterns and design, see the Intuit Design System guidelines

Em dashes

Put a space before and after em dashes. Yes, it’s different from our general guidance, but we do this for chat experiences because we can’t predict where the line will break. 

Also, use em dashes instead of colons. This better mimics human conversation patterns.

Length

Keep it short—no more than 3 sentences in a response. This is a conversation, not a lecture. Break a series of sentences into multiple responses. For more, go to Conversation basics

Message bubbles

The bot’s responses are made up of message bubbles. When writing for these bubbles: 

• Use punctuation
• Have no more than five lines in one bubble
• Use three or fewer bubbles
• Use line breaks or new bubbles to separate thoughts
• Break one long bubble into two or three to make it easier to read
• Consider that multiple bubbles can get pushed beyond the top of the message window

For more UI specs, use the AI toolkit from Intuit Design System

Pills or chips

Pills—sometimes called suggestion chips—can be used alone to take customers somewhere or with a question to show options. The conversation should prompt a clear action before your pill(s). For more on action language, go to Actions.

When writing for pills:

• Add them in follow-up messages.
• Use yes/no pills for responses to yes/no questions. This creates less work for the customer.

• Aim for two pills. At times, it may be necessary to use more than two pills when showing available options—but don’t use more than 4 on web and 2 on mobile. Example: “What sort of report do you want me to create?” (P&L) (Top Expenses) (Top Income Sources) (Custom Report)
• When providing non-exclusive options, include chips for options like “all,” “both,” and “none.”
• Like any CTA, consider label length and how crowded they may seem when designing more than two options. See Actions and Tips for writing small
• Consider whether only offering two options will limit the customer’s expectations of what’s available.

Don’t bold CTAs or pills. For more UI specs, use the AI toolkit from Intuit Design System

Punctuation

In general, use punctuation for message bubbles. However, if Intuit Assist’s response is only one sentence, you can drop the end punctuation. Chat mimics conversation, not prose.