Language

Guidelines for using consistent spelling and terminology in the UI.

Spelling

Use American English when writing UI copy. American English is a version of the English language used in the United States. It's sometimes called United States English or U.S. English.

Certain words are spelled differently in American English and British English. You'll find some of these key spelling differences in the following sections.

Verbs that end with 'ize' or 'yze'

In American English, verbs that end with 'ize' usually end with 'ise' in British English. Similarly, verbs that end with 'yze' in American English usually end with 'yse' in British English.

American English	British English
organize	organise
authorize	authorise
analyze	analyse

Nouns that end with 'or'

In American English, nouns that end with 'or' usually end with 'our' in British English.

American English	British English
flavor	flavour
color	colour
behavior	behaviour

Nouns that end with 'ense'

In American English, nouns that end with 'ense' usually end with 'ence' in British English.

American English	British English
license	licence
defense	defence
pretense	pretence

Nouns that end with 'og'

In American English, nouns that end with 'og' usually end with 'ogue' in British English.

American English	British English
dialog	dialogue
catalog	catalogue
epilog	epilogue

Case and capitalization

Use sentence case by default

This goes for navigation menus, titles and headers, buttons, and so on.

Use sentence case by default for UI copy, including actions, views, settings, section headers, and dialog titles. Sentence case is easier to read, even in headings, and helps branded names stand out. It also makes those names easier to recognize and preserve when localizing an interface. Title Case can feel more formal, so don't use it just to make a label look prominent.

Reserve Title Case for proper names: branded products, apps, and features such as Entity Analytics and Machine Learning. A useful check is whether you'd refer to the item by that name in a product announcement, rather than using the words to describe what a section contains. For example, Stack management, GenAI settings, Budgets and notifications, API keys, and Trust management are descriptive labels, so use sentence case. Keep a proper name's established capitalization wherever it appears, and use sentence case for the surrounding words, as in "Open in Entity Analytics" or "Entity Analytics settings."

Even with sentence case, make sure to capitalize the following terms and expressions:

• Branded terms like solution and application names. For example, always write Elastic Observability, not elastic observability.
• Acronyms, such as URL and API.

Note that some names don't need to be capitalized when they're used as common names. For example, Elastic Cloud Serverless and our serverless architecture are both correct.

UI text	Casing	Why
Entity Analytics	Title Case	Feature name
Add data	Sentence case	Action, not a name
Open in Entity Analytics	Sentence case, with the name unchanged	Sentence-case action containing a capability name
Create Entity Analytics dashboard	Sentence case, with the name unchanged	"Entity Analytics" is a name; "dashboard" is generic
Entity Analytics settings	Sentence case, with the name unchanged	"Settings" is a generic descriptor
Add to case	Sentence case	"Case" is a generic object, not a name
Open in Cases	Sentence case, with the name unchanged	"Cases" is the app name

Do: Sentence case fits most situations.

Don't: Capitalize every word in buttons or titles.

Do: Use sentence case for actions and keep names capitalized.

Don't: Don't use Title Case for actions or change a name's capitalization.

Do: Use Title Case for the app name and sentence case for navigation labels.

Don't: Don't change the app name's capitalization or capitalize generic navigation labels as titles.

Punctuation

Ellipsis

Only use ellipsis for truncated text or situations that require the user to wait.

• Do: Page loading... not Elastic offers many features such as Dashboards, Machine Learning, Synthetics...

Exclamation mark

Avoid exclamation marks in most cases. A single exclamation mark when sharing exciting news may be appropriate.

Oxford comma

Use the Oxford comma before the final item in a list.

• Do: Elastic's solutions are Elasticsearch, Observability, and Security not Elastic's solutions are Elasticsearch, Observability and Security

Periods (full stops)

Use periods with:

• description text
• messages
• notifications
• list items that are complete sentences

Don't use periods with:

• headers
• titles
• placeholders
• list items that are incomplete sentences

Contractions

Use contractions if they make your text flow more naturally, such as "didn't" instead of "did not" and "can't" instead of "cannot."

Didn't find what you were looking for?

Do: Use contractions if they make the text easier to read.

Did not find what you were looking for?

Don't: Without the contraction, this text sounds stilted.

Vocabulary

Check Word choice for guidance on specific terms to use or to avoid.