FAQs

[Barry Campbell]

On 5/15/06, Diane Boos <dianeboos at comcast.net> wrote:
> Many times technical writers produce these FAQs. How often are they really
> used? Do companies ever check their effectiveness? Anybody have any
> statistics about how successful FAQ searches are?
>
> When I'm asked to develop FAQs, I try to organize them them into general
> topic areas, even providing links to the topics to make access easier. What
> has been your experience with FAQs and user feedback?

FAQs can be incredibly useful for tech writers--if they are, in fact,
Frequently Asked Questions.

If something is a FAQ, that means one or more of the following is true:

-- It isn't covered or explained adequately in the documentation, or
-- People aren't finding it in the documentation, or
-- People aren't reading the documentation, period.

My point of view is that a FAQ should be a living document, and is a
great place to capture quick answers to problems that you're going to
fix/information you're going to make easier to find in the next
revision of the documentation.  The answer(s) to a *really* frequently
asked question probably belongs in your Quick Start guide and your
online help (at a minimum.)

- bc

-- 
Barry Campbell <barry at campbell-online.com>
http://campbell-online.com