Recently, while trying to complete an online form, I needed help with a specific field. The field had a question mark icon next to it. I clicked the icon, and a separate window opened. The window displayed a long, scrolling list of anchor links leading to a long, scrolling group of FAQs.
I scanned the list and clicked through to what appeared to be a promising match near the bottom. I read the answer, but it was unrelated to what I needed to know. After tedious, endless scrolling through FAQs, I couldn’t find anything related to my question. I finally opened a new tab and used a Google web query outside of the site.
Sound familiar?
Many websites use Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) as the primary means of providing help for customers and other visitors. While FAQs may sometimes work in certain contexts, they often make finding answers more difficult.
Just ask Laura Creekmore. In her August 2011 post, I’m Going to Stop You Before You FAQ Again, Laura explains why FAQs are bad and suggests ways in which you can avoid using them. I want to supplement Laura’s great post with suggestions for how you can rewrite FAQs as topics.
The Trouble with FAQs
So why are FAQs badly overused? Here are some reasons.
Too Many Interrogative Words
When we write FAQs, we guess at how users will ask a question. We use strings of interrogative words that can make browsing and scanning difficult. And web users browse and scan a lot. We sometimes add so many words that our content may not readily appear in search results.
What do I do if I am getting a ‘Library not installed’ message when I click the Make Widget icon?
Alternative:
This question isn’t easily parsed by a search engine. It could be transformed into a troubleshooting topic with the message text, the action that caused the message, and a recommended solution.
Extraneous Words
FAQs often include scene-setting statements with a lot of extraneous words. This type of construction can obscure the words that are relevant to what users want to know.
I have a series of files that I no longer use, but I don’t want to delete them. How can I archive them?
Alternative:
The key words in this question are files and archive. The topic is archiving files. This question makes the subject of archiving files tedious to find—especially if the user is scanning for an answer. A better solution would be a procedural topic labeled Archiving Files.
Lack of Context
FAQ pages often have no contextual relationship with the content that they represent.
Consider my story of completing the online form. The long scrolling window took me away from the form I was trying to complete. By the time I found an answer to my question, I had to re-orient myself to the task at hand.
Alternative:
As a best practice, a help link next to a form field should ideally display inline help content for that field. If the help content opens in a separate window, that window should show only the context-sensitive topic—not a long list of FAQs.
Think Topics
The widespread use of FAQs is easily understandable. When site visitors search or browse for information, they ask implied questions through their search queries and the pages they visit. We who are responsible for providing help try to anticipate how they might phrase their questions by writing FAQs.
We can just as easily turn questions into topics. Topics are discrete chunks of information that can enable readers to accomplish the following:
- Understand a concept
- Perform a task
- Look up information
- Solve a problem
- Establish where they are in a hierarchy of information
Benefits of a Topic-Based Approach
A topic-based approach provides the following benefits:
- Uses consistent structures to establish a repeatable, predictable pattern for finding information
- Uses headings and subheadings to break up longer topics, supporting the ability to scan text
- Separates supporting information from how-to information so that site visitors get exactly what they need
Types of Topic
Table 1 lists the three most common topic types in web writing and describes the purpose of each. If you are even marginally familiar with Information Mapping or the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), you will recognize these.
Table 1. Topic Types
| Type | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Concept | Introduces and describes a subject. Concept titles begin with the word about: About 911. |
| Task | Explains the steps for completing a task. The steps sometimes include result statements and decision tables. Procedure titles begin with a gerund: Calling 911. |
| Reference |
Provides a means (usually a table or list) for looking up information. Entries are typically in alphabetical order. Reference titles can vary according to what the reference provides. The title may or may not include the word reference. A glossary and a lookup table of command syntax are examples of reference information. In our 911 example, we might have a topic called Critical Information Needed When Calling 911. |
Examples of other topics include:
- Overview: An organizational topic that serves as a landing page for a site section
- Process: Describes a step-by-step process and identifies the doer of the action for each step
- Troubleshooting: Used in help information for software applications; provides error message text, explains the action that caused the message, and offers a recommended solution.
In upcoming posts, I will expand on the three main topic types and provide examples. In the meantime, I would like to know what you think about FAQs as a help mechanism. Do you find them useful? Why or why not?
