Frequently asked questions Gavin Wye
1 May 2020


Every website seems to have one. A list of questions, sitting off in a corner, away from the thing the question is actually about.

If people keep asking you the same question, that is a mark of failure. Something you have built, written or designed has not answered it. The question is evidence.

So go and find out why they are asking. Do the research. Watch people use the thing. The question is usually a symptom of something further upstream โ€” a word that means one thing to you and another to them, a step that arrives before people are ready for it, information sitting three pages from where it is needed.

Then fix that. Answer the question in the place the question comes up, not on a separate page people have to go looking for.

An FAQ page does not answer the question. It moves it somewhere else and calls the job done.


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