Use this comprehensive list of common words and phrases typically seen in industrial chatbot interfaces to ensure your chatbot UI is consistent, clear and aligns with our ONE Design Language approach. The words and phrases below attempt to find a balance between representing our voice (open, engaging and authentic) while also not humanizing the bot. This means that the bot responds as a competent expert or colleague without responding as a human with real emotions.
Note: Some elements offer more than one option for you to select depending on your use case.
Welcome message
Use any of the five messages depending on your product and use case.
- Generic welcome: Hello, how can I help you today?
- With chatbot name: Hello, I'm [Copilot name]. How can I help you today?
- With product name: Hello, I'm your [product name] Copilot. How can I help you today?
- With username: Hello Felix, how can I help you today?
- With product and username: Hello Sara, I'm [Copilot name]. How can I help you today?
Placeholder text for chat window
Use these universal, non-specific options to encourage solution and technology-focused input. Avoid generic, open placeholders that encourage off-topic queries.
Enter a command, question or topic to begin…
Use alternative placeholder text when your chatbot has a single use case.
Response progress indicator
Always use “generate” as the main progress indicator verb with ellipses (...).
Use “generate” to match the action verb to stop the chatbot responding or ask the chatbot to continue responding without ellipses.
Speech to text (STT) / voice recording
Use a tooltip on hover to clarify any recording limitations and tell users how to stop recording.
Click to start and stop voice recording (max 2 minutes).
Use “Recording…” as feedback to show the feature is working.
Asking for feedback
Use thumbs up and down icons to request feedback.
Thumbs up icon (
Thumbs down icon (
Time indicators for chat history
Use “last” instead of “previous” and “prior” for time-related terminology in chat history.
Tooltip options for chat history (from simple to complex)
- Chat history stored for 30 days.
- Chat history stored for 30 days (learn more).
- Chat history stored for 30 days and then automatically deleted.
- Chat history stored securely for 30 days. Only you and authorized personnel have access.
- Chat history encrypted and stored for 30 days. Access is limited to you and authorized personnel. Data deleted automatically after this period.
Actions for buttons, icons and hover text
Use the following action wording for consistency within all our chatbots.
Example action buttons for industrial applications
View documentation Download documentation Download manual Export data Open link Show image Play video Report issue Contact support Add to calendar Book webinar
Citing sources
Use “sources” as the text label to indicate where the generated information is from.
Avoid mixing terms (resources, sources) and instead label the source format, e.g. website, pdf, etc.
Chatbot with multiple agents
Use clear wording to differentiate between multiple bots when displaying output.
Responses generated by: agent X (with agent selection dropdown)
Punctuation
Avoid punctuation, such as exclamation marks for buttons, hover text, titles and tags.
Problematic wording to avoid
Most problematic wording involves the bot expressing itself as a human with human emotions carrying out human cognitive processing. Ensure your bot persona has been prompted to avoid human-like, emotional responses.
Use “generating” not “thinking” as chatbots don’t perform cognitive processes.
Avoid prompting emotional language like “I’m afraid…” in industrial chatbots.
I’m afraid that I can’t help you right now as I’m assessing the data.
Avoid technical, robotic phrases like “Please stand by…” as these are outdated, passive and unhelpful.
Please stand by while I process your request.
Dos and Don’ts
- Do use sentence casing to align with our UX writing guidelines
- Do ensure the voice and tone aligns with your product and our iX conversational design principles
- Don’t use synonyms to vary the UI wording, be consistent and use the same words repeatedly
- Don’t use “Creating…” as the progress indicator as there is no creative process and is misleading