FAQ-type knowledge articles -

Karolina · ‎05-14-2021

Hi All,

I'm currently working cleaning up our knowledge base and got a little stuck with the FAQ-type articles, namely whether how to structure them.

In our case, such KAs are not individual articles, each answering a single question, but a collection of Q&As somehow related to the main topic, bulked in one KA, e.g. "What should I do if I can't access the survey" is in the same article as "How often is the survey sent out to employees". What is troubling me with this approach is the efficiency of the search engine and how accurate the results are in comparison to having one article address one question.

I was wondering of anyone could share their experience on this? Any insights or best practices to share?

Lauren Methena · ‎05-14-2021

This question is a great example of where user experience, editorial best practices, and technology intersect!

First, I have found the search algorithms for ServiceNow knowledge to be scary accurate. For example, one time I was testing the search function and I used the word "ostrich," because I knew it was in the text of one article. I wanted to see if it would actually come up.

I actually got two results! The second article didn't have the word "ostrich" in the body content - but it did have it in the PDF attachment! It was an older article that I hadn't seen before. But I was impressed that I was able to find it with such an obscure word!

So, as far as search capability, as long as you are following half-way decent SEO practices (i.e., your content contains common sense words and phrases that people are searching by), an article with several FAQs should come up in a variety of pertinent searches.

You can also add additional search terms to the Meta field on the backend. This will boost where your article ranks, what terms users can use to find the article, etc.

Second, from a user experience perspective, it may actually be more frustrating if your FAQs are all separated out and you have to seek individual questions or articles to get all the info you need.

It's hard to predict if someone coming to a topic will want the answer to one specific question, if they'll have one question but then want to browse because it turns out they need the other information and didn't know it, or if they'll actually come looking for several answers on the same topic.

For these reasons, it's often good to put FAQs together in one article. (It also can make for a tidier knowledge base.)

The next question is - how can you make a list of FAQs more user friendly? (Because it is all about user experience, right?)

A couple of considerations:

How long is the article? An article without a lot of length/scroll to it can be skimmed easily by users.
Formatting counts - having an easy-to-read format where questions are bold and answers are in regular format can help. Spacing - giving the eyes room to "breathe" - can go a long way in making an article skimmable. Make sure the eyes can take in the info easily. Most users want to skim the questions and then will pay attention to the answer once they find a question that matches their concern.
For longer articles, consider grouping FAQs into topics - and then use anchor tags (AKA jump links) or the new table of contents tool in Paris to create a table of contents at the top that people can then use to jump to the section they need.
Consider putting directions at the top to tell users how to use CTRL+F to search an article for the keywords they're looking for. (We add these directions to long documents, such as PDFs of medical benefits information.)

Using these content best practices combined with these search best practices should make your FAQ articles, no matter how long, more usable.

If you find these tips worthy and of use in your situation, I hope you'll mark my response helpful or correct. 🙂

Thanks, Karolina! All the best to you!

-Lauren

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Ryan S · ‎05-21-2021

I'll echo Lauren's comments. We went through this same exercise a couple years ago and it's all about making it useful for the users. We considered having separate articles and making a widget for FAQs (that would pull in specific articles) and/or more portal customizations to make these more accessible. In the end though we chose to just make a single article for each set of FAQs. Our users were used to going to a SharePoint page where we'd just type up the FAQs in a Word document looking format. We still do the same thing with the article so they can really click on one topic to get the FAQs, as well as links to other relevant knowledge articles.

Michael QCKM · ‎03-18-2022

Question based on all - very similar - responses;

How do you know WHICH item/part is actually solving the users issue? Isn't that something you want to know? That is one of the main reasons we avoid FAQ-style articles.

Coming from a ticket-solving background with KM, we wanted to ensure we have as close to a 1:1 relationship between the Issue, and the Resolution, so that we can 'know/prove' via reporting which Issues are coming up the most, and which answers are the most 'valuable'.

We also want to use that data to push upstream to attempt to get the root issue fixed in the first place - if possible.

I'm curious when people prefer the many issue/many answer articles and want to be sure I'm not thinking wrong.

Karolina · ‎03-28-2022

In my case, I mostly work with HR KB and system issues are only a small part of it. We do have articles explaining e.g. performance management processes and there are usually many questions repeatedly asked around those (like "by when should I complete the mid-year check-in" or "is this survey anonymous") and we prefer to have such questions published as FAQs for the end-users to find a quick answer.