Content foundations
Writing clear, purposeful interface text is essential to how users navigate IBM products. These guidelines help teams create consistent, user‑focused wording that supports a seamless experience. Carbon’s content guidance is based on IBM’s standards for language, tone, and writing conventions, ensuring those principles are reflected in the decisions teams make when writing for product interfaces.
These guidelines are intended for anyone who writes or reviews product content: writers, designers, product teams, and engineers. By following them, teams ensure that content within Carbon‑based products is not only internally consistent but also aligned with the larger IBM ecosystem, giving users a coherent experience no matter which IBM offering they interact with.
Resource | Description | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
A collection of language and grammar reminders to help you write clear, concise, and actionable UI copy that is consistent across IBM Software products. | When writing or reviewing any UI copy, a good first reference. | |
Use sentence-style capitalization for headings, titles, labels, banners, and similar elements, unless noted otherwise. | When you're unsure whether to capitalise a heading, label, or UI element. | |
Terminology management promotes the consistent use of standardized terms across IBM. | When introducing a new term, or checking whether a term is already standardised across IBM. | |
Guidance on punctuation conventions to ensure consistency and clarity across IBM Software product interfaces. | When you need guidance on commas, colons, dashes, or other punctuation in UI strings. | |
Guidance on how to present numbers in product UIs to aid readability and maintain consistency across IBM Software products. | When displaying quantities, dates, measurements, or ranges in the UI |
Writing for accessibility
For detailed guidance about writing for all users, please read the Content design section of the IBM Accessibility site.
It provides detailed guidance on the following topics:
- text alternatives for visuals or audio content
- errors and other messages
- labels and inputs for forms
- guidance for providing adequate context
Further guidance can be found in the Web Content Accessibility guidelines.
Additional content guidelines
Carbon is one expression of a broader IBM design philosophy. For teams who want to understand the thinking behind the system not just the rules these resources go to the source.
The IBM Design Language, Brand Center, and Brand Systems are the upstream assets that Carbon's visual and verbal decisions are derived from. Familiarity with them helps teams make better product decisions not by overriding Carbon's content guidance, but by understanding the principles behind it well enough to apply them confidently in situations Carbon doesn't explicitly address.
- IBM Design Language: The IBM Design Language provides the guidance and assets used to express the IBM brand. It articulates the philosophy and principles that Carbon is built upon understanding it gives context to the decisions Carbon makes on your behalf. Explore IBM design language.
- IBM Brand Center: IBM Brand Center is the home base for the IBM brand story, visual brand elements, guidelines, and assets. It is the definitive reference for how IBM presents itself, the foundation from which Carbon's visual identity is drawn. Visit IBM brand center.
- IBM Brand Systems: IBM brand systems have been developed for various IBM businesses, audiences, and offerings. They reveal the rationale behind every visual and verbal detail useful context for teams extending Carbon into specialised product contexts. Read IBM brand systems.
Questions and feedback
If there’s something you need and cannot find, or if you need clarification about a particular use case, you can ask questions in the Carbon Slack channel, open a GitHub issue, or connect with us in one of our meetups.