To FAQ or Not to FAQ?

 

FAQs are a confession.

They’re the digital equivalent of muttering, “Oh, right, we forgot to explain that properly the first time around.” Because if the content on a site were actually structured to map to the journey of a real, live human being, the so-called Frequently Asked Questions wouldn’t need to exist.

And let’s be honest: they’re rarely questions. They’re rarely asked. And yet… here I am. Clicking. Scanning. Loving them.

Why? Because typically they’re the only island of plain, orderly text in an ocean of motion graphics and cinematic homepage drone shots. Everything else is screaming at me in high-res technicolor. The FAQ section? It’s dull. It’s steady. It’s text. Ahhh.

That boredom is soothing. Logical. Navigable. The sort of thing I can control + F my way through without feeling like I’ve been dropped into a neon carnival.

In a perfect world, those glittering top-level pages would actually serve user needs. But until every organization out there starts designing like Wikipedia or IKEA instructions—clear, no-nonsense, and built for humans—I’ll happily cling to the dry little lifeboat called FAQ.

For me it’s not just preference. It’s a kind of micro-accessibility. I get overstimulated by autoplay videos, by spinning icons, by the relentless parade of design cleverness. I need a quiet corner. Text. Black words on a white page.

FAQs are to noisy websites what transcripts are to podcasts: a quiet, searchable oasis of sanity.

So maybe what I’m really saying is this: every website should have a “No Noise” button. Like airplane mode, but for the web. Kill the animations. Cut the background video. Turn down the volume. Just let me read.