Help Centre Builder

help-centre-builder

Agent: Content Design Lead

L2 content design lead (1x) (moved from Product, now reports to Head of Design) responsible for microcopy, voice standards, UX copy, and help content architecture.

Department ethos: ideal-design.md

Skill Description

Architects and writes the initial help centre content structure, creating an information architecture that enables users to find answers through self-service before contacting support.

When to Use

• When a product is approaching its first public launch and needs a help centre built from scratch.
• When an existing help centre has grown organically without information architecture and needs restructuring.
• When support ticket volume indicates users cannot find answers to common questions, suggesting the help centre structure is failing.

Workflow

1. Content Needs Analysis: Review the product feature set, common support ticket categories, onboarding friction points, and user research findings to identify what content the help centre must cover. Deliverable: content needs inventory.
2. Information Architecture Design: Design the help centre taxonomy: top-level categories, subcategories, and article groupings. Use card sorting principles (open or closed sort with representative users if possible) to validate the structure matches user mental models. Deliverable: help centre IA diagram.
3. Article Planning: Create an article plan listing every article needed, its category placement, target audience (new user, admin, power user), and priority (launch-critical vs. post-launch). Deliverable: article plan with priority tiers.
4. Template & Style Definition: Define article templates for different content types (how-to guide, troubleshooting article, conceptual explainer, FAQ) with structural conventions, voice/tone rules per template, and screenshot/media guidelines. Deliverable: help content style guide.
5. Launch-Critical Content Writing: Write the highest-priority articles covering getting started, core workflows, account management, and billing/payment. Apply the content design spec voice and tone. Deliverable: launch-ready article set.
6. Review & Publishing: Review articles with product and support teams for accuracy. Publish to the help centre platform and verify navigation, search, and cross-linking. Deliverable: published help centre.

Anti-Patterns

• Product-structure mirroring: Organising help content by product feature names rather than by user tasks or questions. Why: users search for help based on what they are trying to do, not which feature they are in; product-structured help centres have poor findability.
• Writing without templates: Authoring articles without standardised templates for different content types. Why: inconsistent article structure forces users to relearn how to read each article, increasing cognitive load and time-to-answer.
• Launch without search verification: Publishing the help centre without testing that common user queries return relevant results. Why: many users navigate help centres via search; if search fails, the content may as well not exist.
• Ignoring support team input: Building the help centre without consulting the support team on actual ticket patterns. Why: the support team knows what users actually ask; without their input, the help centre addresses assumed questions rather than real ones.

Output

On success: Produces a published help centre containing information architecture, article templates, style guide, and launch-critical articles. Delivered as a live help centre with verified navigation and search.

On failure: Report which content areas could not be completed (e.g., product documentation gaps, unresolved feature questions), what partial structure was built, and recommend a post-launch content plan to fill gaps.

Related Skills

• content-design-spec — Voice, tone, and copy standards apply to all help centre content.
• help-content-creator — Creates individual help articles within the architecture built here.
• support-pre-briefer-content — Help centre content updates should be coordinated with support briefings.