If I’ve ever found the answer to one of my questions by sifting through an FAQ, such an event was so rare that I no longer look at FAQs. There may be a few useful ones here and there, but I don’t waste my time hunting for them. Life is too short.
As a person who writes and edits for a living, I confess that I’ve been involved in creating an FAQ page or two for a website. I hope they’ve long since been deleted, and I would not be surprised if they were never updated. FAQs are prone to being neglected.
A few tips:
- When someone wants you to create an FAQ, ask your first and most important question: Why?
- Whatever the response is, ask your second and third questions: What are those frequently asked questions? What are the answers?
- If you get a list of questions and answers, make sure the information – not the Q&A – is easy to find, in context, where the web visitor can find it without having to go to an FAQ.
- If you don’t get a list of questions and answers, be glad you don’t have to create an FAQ.
Life is too short. Don’t waste anyone’s time on something that is almost always a bad idea.
B.J.
The Smith Compound 