Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Agent |
Three levels, and the mistake almost everyone makes is organising them around the company rather than the reader.
The structure
- Categories are the top level, shown on your help centre's home page.
- Sections sit inside categories and hold articles. They can nest further on some plans.
- Articles are the content.
Name them as the reader thinks
The single decision that determines whether anyone navigates your help centre.
- Works: Getting started, Orders and delivery, Billing, Troubleshooting.
- Does not: Tier 1 documentation, Operations, Product team.
Your internal structure is a fact about you. Your customer is looking for their problem, and they will not find it filed under your org chart.
Five to eight categories
Beyond that, the home page becomes a list to read rather than a set of choices. Under that, they are too broad to be useful.
Sections can be more numerous, because somebody arriving at a category has already narrowed their search.
Most people arrive by search
Worth remembering while agonising over the structure. Search and links from Google bring the majority of readers straight to an article, and they never see your home page.
Structure matters for browsing and for your own maintenance. Titles matter for finding. Spend accordingly.
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