Analyzing Leading Apps

Our analysis of various apps created by developers from Latin America and Spain included reviewing websites; subscribing to email communications; and studying push notifications, UI elements, and customer support templates. This approach helped us capture the full spectrum of user interactions. To extract and analyze text from screenshots, we used an optical character recognition (OCR) tool and collaborated with Spanish-speaking linguists for a detailed assessment.

Rappi

Rappi is a Latin American super-app offering services such as food delivery, groceries, electronics, and financial services. Rappi’s communication strategy varies by touchpoint:

• Website: informal and direct, using imperative verbs for a friendly experience
• Push notifications: highly visual, with emojis to enhance excitement
• Support content: empathetic and reassuring
• App UI: engaging and action-driven, often using exclamation marks

Cabify

Cabify, a ride-hailing app active in Spain and Latin America, adapts its tone depending on context:

• Website: formal and professional, emphasizing trust and safety
• Emails: more informal, friendly, and engaging
• Support content: clear, structured, and supportive
• App UI: simple and direct, balancing clarity with informality

Despegar

Despegar, a major online travel agency in Latin America, emphasizes clarity and engagement with a warm, conversational tone that fosters accessibility. Across communication channels, Despegar maintains a consistent, friendly tone:

• Emails: welcoming and informal
• Support content: informative and supportive
• App UI: casual and accessible

Analysis findings

Our analysis of these applications revealed clear patterns in the tone preferences of Spanish-speaking users:

• Friendly and natural communication using informal language helps users feel comfortable.
• Clarity and directness aid usability.
• Empathy and reassurance build trust and improve support interactions.

Gathering User Feedback

These insights from leading apps helped us shape the hypotheses we wanted to test and the questions we asked our audience. To validate them and refine our tone of voice, we created 12 in-app mock-ups in collaboration with our UX Writing team, with each message varying across specific tone attributes:

• Formality: formal, casual, or overly friendly
• Respect: respectful, familiar, or brash
• Emotional involvement: detached, caring, or patronizing
• Directness: deceitful, straightforward, or blunt
• Human touch: robotic, human, or excessively informal
• Brand accessibility: upscale, mainstream, or inclusive

Messages were localized into regional variations of Spanish by professional linguists. Together with our UX Research department, we designed a structured survey and gathered user feedback through both closed and open-ended questions. The survey began with a brief, localized welcome message, followed by a tone evaluation task. Participants were shown a single, randomly selected message variant to avoid bias, as side-by-side comparisons could encourage users to pick the least bad option rather than evaluate tone independently.

Respondents were then asked to select tone attributes they felt applied to the message, such as formal, casual, patronizing, or clear. Then, they rated the message on a five-point scale for clarity and relatability. Finally, they were invited to explain their reactions, note anything they found off-putting, and suggest improvements in free-text responses. The survey was localized for each testing region and reviewed by native linguists to ensure clarity and cultural appropriateness.

Survey findings

The survey helped us assess emotional reactions to tone; evaluate clarity, engagement, and relatability; measure perceived trustworthiness and brand fit; and gather suggestions for tone improvements.

We discovered that clarity and directness were the most clearly recognized and appreciated aspects; more than 60% of participants gave the highest clarity ratings to the message variants we designed to be the most straightforward. In open-ended feedback, clarity was also the most frequently mentioned theme, cited by nearly a third of participants. Simplicity and directness were also mentioned frequently, reinforcing the importance of concise and easy-to-follow messaging.

Users expressed a clear preference for informal yet respectful language. Approximately 15% of participants highlighted the importance of natural, relatable phrasing. Warm and friendly messages increased engagement overall, though some users — particularly in Colombia and Peru — flagged excessive informality as unprofessional, highlighting the need to strike a careful balance depending on the region and context.

Emotional tone played a critical role in trust and user satisfaction. Empathy (18%) and respectfulness (17%) were among the most-cited qualities that made users feel supported and understood. Respondents emphasized that messages should feel human, helpful, and considerate, especially in service-related communication.