Don’t get me wrong in the beginning of reading this. I really mean the label and not the content of FAQ. The content is very useful if its’ made the right way (as here on ux.se), but there are plenty of examples where it isn’t. The real question concerns the label which is a convention I’d like to challenge.
History
In 1647 Matthew Hopkins wrote The Discovery of Witches which were introduced as "Certain Queries answered" and had the form of a list of Question and Answer, even if the topic is inappropriate by today’s standards. The label FAQ origins from the early 1980s mailing lists where NASA hoped to get new users read the old mail conversations, which were not the case. Instead the same questions were answered again and again and the need for FAQ was born. The acronym FAQ was invented by Eugene Miya and FAQ were later used in mail on a weekly basis at first and later on as a daily mail.
Today FAQ is more frequently used to refer to the list, and a text consisting of questions and their answers is often called an FAQ regardless of whether the questions are actually frequently asked, if they are asked at all.[1]
Problem
Acronyms are generally bad, since it excludes those who do not know the meaning. They either have to search for the acronym, if they are interested, or just ignore it. If a label is ignored, there is not much use of it and an entire section of valid content is lost by bad labeling. However, it is a very strong web convention which might lead to confusion over time for experienced users. Also the original meaning have changed (see quote), which also implies that the label would be wrong.
Question
Isn’t the FAQ label obsolete by now? and if so How do we relabel it to suit both experienced and new users?
Edit: I’d really like to know why we can or cannot change the label FAQ. Current answer does not meet that criterion.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAQ
Answer
There is no reason you cannot relabel FAQ. Contrary to belief, most popular websites refrain from using the term altogether. For example, Twitter labels their FAQ section "help", as does both Facebook and Google.
If you want to relabel FAQ, go with either help or support. Both translate worldwide and the meanings are easier to conceptualize than FAQ.
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