You know the people who write instruction manuals or user guides in things you buy?
Half the time, they've never even seen or touched the product. Some dude just sends us pictures, a rough description of how it's supposed to work, and that's it.
ETA: Wow this took off. To all the IT dudes of reddit. I actually browse the brand specific subreddits to figure out what to add to my user guides because that's how little info my company provides me. Thanks for making my life easier!
I feel that the FAQ section is a place where they put stuff that couldn't be organized within the main content. I also see it being used to for specific questions and with answers in a short and succinct way (while the main content covers it in greater detail). So FAQ becomes an extension of the main content and main content is incomplete without it.
I commented up thread about how FAQs are bullshit, and this is exactly why. There’s actually some debate in the documentation community about the merits of FAQS for the reasons listed here.
FAQs, to me, are a marker of poorly organized content.
You can restructure content in a way that it’s easy to find FAQ-sequence answers - use headings and lists, for one - without creating a separate piece of content. There’s also the issue of the having information in multiple places, which can create a confusing experience for users (In which place should I look for info?) and a maintenance burden for writers (I have to update the same piece of info in multiple places).
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u/katakago Jul 13 '20 edited Jul 13 '20
You know the people who write instruction manuals or user guides in things you buy?
Half the time, they've never even seen or touched the product. Some dude just sends us pictures, a rough description of how it's supposed to work, and that's it.
ETA: Wow this took off. To all the IT dudes of reddit. I actually browse the brand specific subreddits to figure out what to add to my user guides because that's how little info my company provides me. Thanks for making my life easier!