How to Get Maintaining a Knowledge Base Right
Keeping help articles accurate, findable and useful as a product and its policies change.
Dana Whitfield
Where most projects go wrong
The usual mistakes:
- Articles with no owner
- Content updated only when complaints arrive
- Search logs nobody reads
- Growing archives of obsolete articles
What good looks like instead
- Assign owners and review dates per article
- Review search terms with no useful results
- Update articles alongside product releases
- Track which articles reduce contacts
- Retire articles nobody uses
Why it matters
Stale help content generates support contacts and erodes trust in everything else published.
The specs that matter
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Decay | articles go out of date with every product change |
| Search analytics | reveal what people cannot find |
| Ownership | each article needs an owner |
| Deflection | good articles reduce support contacts |
Knowing when to hand it over
Tip: Bring in help when support volume outgrows the knowledge base.
Where this comes from
- Microsoft Learn — Microsoft Writing Style Guide
- Nielsen Norman Group — Usability heuristics
The figures and practices above come from the sources listed.
Working on something like this?
We take on Content Strategy work for teams who want it done once, properly. Tell us what you are building and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right studio for it. Start a project.
Where to go next
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