I am developing requirements for a new website design for my company. I have noticed that we have a fair number of pages that have only a few sentences of information on them. These pages cover a range of topics that are unrelated to each other and unrelated to other larger sections.
I was thinking about incorporating them into an FAQ page/system. On a lot of websites, I feel like I frequently find useful information inside of an FAQ system that is not contained on other pages. Often, it is the exact information I am on the site trying to locate.
I feel like I can either reduce the clutter of numerous smaller sections to contain this information, or reduce the frustration of a user trying to dig through a large “catch-all” section with little organization.
In general, is making the FAQ section a focal point of a website a good design or evidence of poor content/design of the site? I am thinking that the homepage would feature a fairly prominent link for the FAQ section.
1) The best usability solution is to have a site search. Then it’s less relevant whether the info is in many small pages or one big FAQ.
2) To address ‘frustration of a user trying to dig through a large “catch-all” section’ concern if you do go with the FAQ, you need to have a clickable index/table-of-contents. Wikis (at least Attlassian) let you do this automatically, for custom web site, you have to code it in in HTML or your content management system.
3) If it’s not really frequently asked questions, you may want to name that catch-all page something else, although that’s not a big deal either way.