Documentation by FAQ (was: Question marks in titles?)

[Lisa Wright <liwright -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

At my new organization, the situation seems to have devolved until the FAQ is the de facto form of documentation. All product and service documentation is structured in FAQs. It is not purposeful, and I've found it very frustrating. Whenever any of the technical folks talk about documentation, they say things like, "Put it into the FAQ." Argh! Information is buried two or three levels deep; sometimes the user has to identify the category the question might be in before they can see the questions. On the surface, it *appears* to be task-oriented because the questions supposedly answer the user's need to *do* something. In reality, it inhibits the user's ability to find out how to do anything. (Part of this is the larger structure of our site, as well.) 

We are going to restructure our approach and the FAQ for a given service, if there is one, will hopefully be closer to the actual purpose of an FAQ. This is all going to take some time, and probably we will encounter some resistance along the way. We have the mandate and the authority to take it on though, which is great. I really don't want to be part of perpetuating what I feel is an extremely useless form of documentation.

I'm curious if anyone else has encountered this. Alternately, if anyone has deliberately made a choice to document exclusively via FAQ, why did you choose and what benefit do you feel it provides?

Thanks,
Lisa

-----Original Message-----
From: eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com
Sent: Feb 1, 2005 8:49 AM
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Cc: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: RE: Question marks in titles?


bounce-techwr-l-106467 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com wrote on 02/01/2005 09:39:56 AM:
> Whenever we look for some information, we have a question 
> in our heads.

True. But which question? Also, the argument is a bit of a tautology and 
ridiculous if brought to it's logical extreme. Every reader that opens a 
reference book has a 'question' in their head. So, should all technical 
reference and text book titles be phrased only in the form of questions? 
While it might improve the general population's performance on Jeopardy, I 
don't think it would be terribly helpful for general comprehension and 
learning.

Then, if the user of the FAQ is genuinely lost with no other resource, why 
is a even FAQ considered? It's the failure of all other documentation that 
is to blame so a FAQ is a questionable band-aid solution. How many 
questions could be answered better by a regularly maintained on-line index 
and revised manual set?

Personally I find FAQs and Technical Help pages based on problems next to 
useless. It's infuriating to first have to determine from similarly worded 
questions which might be close to the one I have and then read paragraphs 
of information before finding out that none of them do.

YMMV,

Eric L. Dunn
Senior Technical Writer



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT - EDIT AND REVIEW, REDEFINED
Accelerate the document lifecycle with full online discussions and unique feedback-management capabilities. Unlimited, efficient reviews for Word
and FrameMaker authors. Live, online demo:
http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l

Technical Communication Certificate online - Malaspina-University College, Canada. Online training in technical writing, software (FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Dreamweaver, Acrobat), document & web design, writing manuals, job search. www.pr.mala.bc.ca/tech_comm.htm for details.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.