Grammar and style
4.1. Writing, formatting, and spelling
These rules mostly apply when we create a piece of writing. We follow them to bring consistency to everything we do.
NOTE: this list is updated whenever we encounter new scenarios/issues.
American spelling
Always use American spelling
e.g.: behavior ✓ optimization ✓ vs. behaviour ✗ optimisation ✗
Acronyms
Spell out acronyms the first time you use them
e.g.: when we look at our Qualified Leads (QL), we look at…
The plural of an acronym only needs a lowercase s, and never needs an apostrophe
e.g.: PAs ✓ PQLs ✓ vs. PA’s ✗ PQL’s ✗
Captions
Image captions are always center-aligned
Image captions start with capital letter and do not require a full-stop at the end
Contractions
Use verb and word contractions
e.g.: don’t, isn’t, won’t ✓
E-commerce
e-commerce (lowercase e and c, hyphen) is the only acceptable spelling; it takes a capital E at the beginning of a sentence:
e-commerce ✓
eCommerce ✗
ecommerce ✗
Hotjar-specific spelling
Team names are capitalized → e.g. Product Design, Paid Acquisition
Hotjar tools are capitalized → e.g. Recordings, Heatmaps
Numbers
In general, spell out numbers from one to ten—unless you have a very specific reason not to (saving space in a title, using the number as an adjective, etc.)
e.g.: Our team is made of four members
e.g.: Our 3-column template works well
Use numerals for numbers above ten
e.g.: You can do this in 45 minutes
Punctuation
Colon
Never capitalize the first letter after a colon, not even in a title, unless the word following the colon is a proper noun or an acronym
e.g.: This is it: Capital letters after a colon are wrong. ✗
e.g.: This is it: lowercase letters after a colon are correct. ✓
e.g.: This I believe: NPS is easy to calculate. ✓
Commas
In a list of 3+ items, use a serial comma
e.g.: we use feedback, surveys, and polls
Bullet point lists
- Bullet point lists and numbered lists start with a capital letter, like in this example
- Bullet point lists do not use punctuation at the end—unless the bullet point has more than one sentence. In that case, add a final comma at the end like in this current example.
- Try to keep your bullet point lists consistent and easy to scan. For example, if the first element on the list is a one-liner, then try to keep the same format so the second one is not a whole paragraph. This bullet point list is a typical example of what we should NOT do for consistency: each point is longer than the previous one :)
Em dashes
When you use em dashes—like these—leave no space between the dashes and the words they precede and follow
Quotation marks
Use quotation marks whenever quoting from somebody’s direct speech or a portion of text
e.g.: Fio said “this is what the Chicago Manual of Style rule is,” and everybody agreed. ✓
When using quotation marks, the punctuation generally sits INSIDE the quotation mark
e.g.: Fio said “this is what the Chicago Manual of Style rule is.” Everybody agreed. ✓vs: Fio said “this is what the Chicago Manual of Style rule is”. Everybody disagreed ✗
Use single commas for all other cases and use punctuation as normal
e.g.: It looked relatively ‘wonky’, but it worked. ✓ vs.: It looked relatively “wonky”, but it worked. ✗ vs.: It looked relatively “wonky,” but it worked. ✗
Table of contents (on a blog post)
Use a bullet point list to introduce every item, like in the example below
Use your judgment to decide whether you only want to include H2s or want to add H3s as well (if it looks ‘too long’, it probably is)
Follow the same rules for a bullet point list (capitalize the first word, do not add full-stop at the end of each point)
Time zones
Use lowercase am and pm to indicate time, and don’t leave a space between the number and am/pme.g.: The meeting was at 8am ✓ vs. The meeting was at 8 AM / 8 am ✗
When planning for time-sensitive events (both external, such as public webinar, system update, project release, and internal), we use UTC as a standard.
Titles and headlines
Use sentence case for email subject lines, blog titles, and blog headlines H1, H2, etc. e.g.: This is how we built Hotjar ✓ vs. This Is How We Built Hotjar ✗
Title elements after a colon (:) require lowercase letter e.g.: Our retro: what we learned ✓ vs. Our retro: What we learned ✗
4.2 Most common spelling errors to avoid
These are the most common spelling errors to avoid:
- Your = belonging to you | you’re = you are
- Who’s = who is | whose = belonging to whom
- There = in that place | their = belonging to them | they’re = they are
- Its = belonging to it | it’s = it is
- Two = 2 | to = to do something | too = as well
To remove typos and other spelling errors,
- Use Grammarly (American English)
- Have someone else review the piece before it’s published