FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) remain a popular feature on many websites, not least on the University’s own site where a quick search for ‘FAQ’ brings up dozens of results.
On the surface, FAQs make sense: let’s gather together all the most popular things that people ask/look for, and put them all in the same place, so that users can browse through and hopefully find the answer to their question! There are however a few downsides to this approach:
- Users have to scan an (often long) list of questions and answers until they spot the thing they’re interested in. Questions take longer to scan and understand than a short meaningful heading. This can result in users missing the information they’re looking for, particularly if it’s buried in a long list.
- FAQs are often not actually ‘frequently asked’ by users. Most of the time they’re a list of what the organisation wants users to know.
- There is a strong argument that if a question really is being ‘frequently asked’, it should already have been addressed in an easily-findable page/section of your content, not randomly buried in an FAQ section.
- FAQs sometimes lead to duplication. The different versions of the content will be competing in search results, won’t rank as highly, and may be missed. Duplication also runs the risk of not updating both versions in future, leading to factual errors.
The Government Digital Service echoes many of these sentiments in their blog post on the subject – FAQs: why we don’t have them – Government Digital Service.
“We should never classify based on the content type (FAQs) or the tool. We should instead classify based on the task the customer wishes to complete” – Gerry McGovern
If you or your users feel the need to have information in FAQs, it’s a sign that your website isn’t structured very well. Users should be able to intuitively navigate their way around the site. Web designers should use tools like card sorting and tree testing to help them arrange their content.
FAQs are increasingly becoming irrelevant anyway. People overwhelmingly tend to Google search these days if they’re looking for answers to a question, and AI-type search is accelerating this trend further. Correctly structured and well-written content is more findable by search engines and AI, so ensuring that you do this will help users much more than FAQs ever will.
If you want advice on structuring your content, you can email us if you work at the University: web-editor@bristol.ac.uk