A production documentation style guide built from scratch — currently adopted across 4 product lines at Internet Brands, covering WebMD Health Services and Martindale-Avvo integrations.
Author: Tyra Miles — Portfolio · tyratech23@gmail.com
Internet Brands operated 6 product documentation sites with no shared standards. Terminology, voice, formatting, and code conventions varied across legal and healthcare platforms. Every review cycle involved relitigating the same debates about Oxford commas and table formatting.
I built this style guide to make those debates happen once. After adoption:
- 40% reduction in editorial review cycle time
- 4 product lines using consistent standards
- 6 documentation sites with unified terminology and code conventions
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Voice and tone | How we write — direct, precise, respectful of the reader's time |
| Word choice | Preferred terms, forbidden terms, capitalization standards |
| Formatting | Bold, italics, inline code, callouts, tables |
| Code documentation | Block formatting, sample requirements, inline comment standards |
| API reference standards | Required fields for every parameter, field, endpoint, and error |
| Headings | Hierarchy, style, verb form |
| Links | Link text standards, when to link, external links |
| Numbers and units | Monetary values, timestamps, numerals vs. words |
| Error messages | Error format, resolution paths, customer-facing copy |
| Changelog writing | Entry format, breaking vs. non-breaking, tense |
| Accessibility | Alt text, table markup, heading sequencing |
| Review checklist | Pre-publish sign-off criteria |
This guide is written as a reference, not a rulebook. Read Section 1 (Voice and Tone) to understand the principles. Then use the rest as a lookup.
For anything this guide doesn't cover: Google Developer Documentation Style Guide.
- API documentation samples — OpenAPI spec, quickstart, error reference, changelog written to these standards
- Portfolio — case studies with outcomes