[Sigia-l] Question about FAQs

[Dey Alexander]

David, wonderful stuff!

I've been battling with, mostly in good humour, the business owners of a 
database-driven FAQ engine at my place of work.

Some months ago I was asked to do a usability review (shorthand for "has 
Dey seen this?", which in turn is apparently shorthand for either "we've 
taken a user-centred design approach" or "our system has been usability 
tested") of the system and upset a few of the senior stakeholders by 
asking why they wanted to replicate (in a clunky format), rather than 
clean up, their corporate information.

Your suggestions have given me the inspiration for another round of 
"discussions".

Cheers,
Dey

PS: I love number 4.  I've been teasingly refering to FAQs as EQEAs

David R. Austen wrote:

1. Suggest numerous FAQs, arranged like the overall architecture of
the site...

2. Insist on honesty, transparency. These must be true FAQs, submitted
by real customers, and not just nice ideas about questions that people
might ask...

3. Indicate that such questions must drive the (information) redesign
of the entire site...

4. The format should change to, "Questions asked this month / year" -
and not a list of every question that was ever asked....

5. Remind the client that if they go down this road they are
eventually going to be providing much company information in two
different formats...

6. Ask the FAQ Defenders if they have ever come across a book that
consists of long strings of questions and answers...

Cheers,
Dey