What's the difference between "Help Center" and "Knowledge Base" sections on a website, if there's any?

Question

Which is better to use for a page with articles (explaining how to use the app)? Because I've seen different companies use either of the mentioned. I even saw some use "Help & Knowledgebase"? Which should I choose?

p.s. I want to put this name (HD or KB on the landing page and add an anchor link leading to it).

Answer 1

Personally, I always considered (and therefore use) Knowledge Base INSIDE Help (or Help Center if you wish). I think HELP is global, and all resources aimed to HELP users should be put together in a single section with a label that is easy to recognize.

My common approach to help structure is as follows: (when needed, not all sites are the same)

• Help
  • Knowledge Base
  • FAQ
  • Support
  • (whatever item that should be added here, such as video tutorials, community support forum, help chat and so on)

The most important thing: in the main hub for Help Page, always have phone and mail clearly visible. Not at the top, though, or your CS staff will go crazy, but visible enough after all options I mentioned.

EDIT: Now that I see it, this site uses the same approach: a help link, and then a dropdown to different sections. Same goes for Uber, Airbnb and others. As a side note, Apple uses Support, which makes more sense for physical products (and inside that page, links to different help page like those I mentioned).

Bottom line is: Knowledge Base and other pages are children of the HELP taxonomy, thus they might be similar, but not the same.

Answer 2

This is a question of labeling to meet users' expectations. Will they be disappointed if they tap on "Help Center" and there is no toll-free number to call, or chat agent available? Will they understand immediately that "Knowledge Base" is entirely self-service?

Help Center sounds active (because "Help" is both a verb and a noun). The label sets the expectation that, while there may be reams of documentation available, there is also someone standing by on headphones, waiting to actively help me with my task. I might expect to see a link to initiate a chat, a phone number in giant display type, a search bar to do a little self-service help, and a list of top questions people ask (FAQs). With a Help Center, I may be able to find a quick answer to my question, or I may need to chat with an agent to resolve the problem. Either way, I am likely to succeed.

Knowledge Base, on the other hand, sounds passive because there is no verb in the phrase. It implies that this is more than a collection of links; that powering it all is a [knowledge management system created according to best practices][1], and there may be no human assistance available.

The melding of the two ("Help & Knowledge Base") implies that there may be a knowledge management system available for self-service, and full-service help options as well, via chat or phone call.

For your purposes, you might be best served with a "How To Use This App" or "Get Started with App" link and save the Help and Knowledge Base for when your needs have grown past the basic Quick Start modules.

[1]: Aiken, Best Practices for the Implementation of a Knowledge Management System in Small and Medium Enterprises (https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/21960/Aiken2016.pdf)

Answer 3

_{The following is my opinion, and is based on my experiences with the two areas.}

Help Center—Problem solver. Provides answers for common problems. For example,

"I can't figure out how to export my edited photo!"

Knowledge Base—Resource pool. Contains information on anything related to your company's domain. For example:

"How do I pick a good location for a photo shoot?"

This would be a pretty easy thing to verify with a sample of your users. Present them with the two naming options and ask a variety of questions, like "In which section would you be more likely to find an article on buying your first camera?" or "Where would you go if your software won't start?" Then you can better understand what your users think the section should be called.

Answer 4

I kind of agree with JonW's comment that KB is more dynamic and for me it's more detailed, too. But because there's no obvious difference between them, just these "I think..."s the users will not know the difference either. I would call it Help Center, because it contains the word Help, and it's easier to find when scanning. And this HC can have more sections like FAQ, KB, Forum, what-not. That's why it's called a Center (of helpful things).

Answer 5

The knowledge base is a kind of self-service online repository which may or may not contain help center articles, visual guides, frequently asked questions, etc whereas Helpcenter is basically a platform that contains information to solve common issues like how to use a particular thing, how to troubleshoot a specific problem, etc.

Concluding it, a knowledge base is not a part of a help center but a help center can be a part of the knowledge base.

Answer 6

I think a Help Center is for people who are confused and need more general answers. It's like the start of the funnel that might lead them to a Knowledge Base article.

So what you are describing are Help Articles for new users. If there's a specific bug or error message that comes up in your application you'd put this in a Knowledge Base.

Compare the Windows 10 Help Center, with the Windows 10 Knowledge Base.

The Windows Help Center has the following direct links to answer immediate questions:

• Troubleshoot problems opening the Start menu or Cortana
• Tips to improve PC performance in Windows 10
• Fix sound problems
• Fix printer problems
• Troubleshoot blue screen errors
• Go back to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1

It's easy to get to and it's a page that Windows are assuming that you'll land on. All you have to type is http://microsoft.com/help and it will take you to that page.

On the Knowledge Base page, there's no direct answers. There's no easy way to find the Knowledge Base page for Windows. I only found it going via https://technet.microsoft.com. The only time I've gone to the Microsoft or Windows knowledge base is for a very specific problem that I've found a specific article for, from a web search.

Answer 7

Interesting question! Having worked over the last 7 years or so with knowledge Management Systems I have a slightly different take, particularly from an information architecture point of view.

knowledge Base in a Call Centre

A knowledge base (KB) is a knowledge repository that is most commonly used to help call centre agents by providing access to information they need to support customers.

Typically this information can be presented in many formats, for example as FAQs or step by step procedures to execute tasks. What name / label is given to this collection of resources depends on the purpose and user / customer needs. Most knowledge base systems that power customer facing / self-service content are typically labelled “help Centre” or “Customer Service” or similar for ease of use.

Type of software vs branding

A “knowledge base” is the type of software, can be standalone or integrated with a customer relationship management (CRM) and can be branded or named as “ FAQs” “Help Centre”, “Customer Service” or anything else that users can identify with.

Answer 8

In my mind here is how I think of the two:

1. Help Center: Interactive support that tells me how to contact - a live customer support agent or connect to a ChatBot or open a help ticket or email helpdesk.

2. Knowledge Base: Library that contains a variety of content and information such as FAQs, Videos, Articles like How-To Guides, Reference material, White papers, etc. These would be up-to-date, easily searchable, and tailored by categories or levels of expertise.

Answer 9

This is a question I've wrestled with for years, both in my own projects and also those of my clients (who are often tired and confused themselves with how to organize their content).

Ultimately, I think there are a few key factors:

1. How big is your company? Don't emulate Fortune 500 strategies if you're a small agency, it can make you look tone deaf, and frustrate your customers too. More often than not, large corporations are doing things inefficiently, and you shouldn't be copying them per se.
2. Passive vs. active support... are you simply providing info, or talking with them?
3. Does the information pertain only to your products and services, or could it also be helpful to a wider audience i.e. possibly part of a lead generation or SEO strategy? As an SEO consultant I have seen so many small companies where 50% of their traffic is landing on Zendesk articles, when that could be optimized articles in their WordPress site used to convert new users, etc.

There are lingual concerns too, because some of the way we approach these concepts in the English world are not the same in other languages and cultures.

That said, here's my current conclusion:

• Generally speaking, anytime the word Support is used, most humans are going to expect that some form of active interaction is available whether via online chat, phone, or otherwise. A really great way to piss off your customers is to use this word, but not offer active interaction (bots don't count).
• FAQ is a more traditional and recognizable term, esp. for older generations or users who are not very tech-savvy. For many smaller websites and companies, I prefer using this approach, because having a dozen common questions with answers provides instant relief (and SEO).
• There's also Documentation or Docs, which are usually preferred by software-specific products or high-tech services with lots of detailed technical info.
• I understand the shift toward Knowledge Base approaches in recent years, but the term has always annoyed me. Is there a space? A dash? Should we write the entire word in our URL base, or use the abbreviation "kb" etc? It's kind of a gangly term when it comes to optimization. The ambiguity of the term itself is almost always matched by the ambiguity of content that companies have in it... every company uses the term differently, which often adds to the confusion and frustration of end users. I avoid this term whenever possible, but I think it can work in place of Documentation for certain high-tech or very large companies who simply have too much content to organize. But mixing FAQ, Docs, and Tutorials into a mess of child pages and calling the resulting shit storm a "Knowledge Base" is lazy stuff.
• Perhaps the only term more ambiguous than Knowledge Base is Help Center, which could just as easily be the name of the office at Disneyland where the security guards stay. Whenever possible, being SPECIFIC about the content you have on your site is going to be more helpful to users. Again, the reason large companies have these ambiguous terms is because they have too many teams and too much content, so they have to keep the names of their content portals vague... smaller companies should NOT copy them, and should be more specific whenever possible.

And remember, companies like Zendesk are in the business of taking your content away from you. At first, they offered support email and tickets, and then it was support chat, and now its support "articles" and knowledge bases and FAQ systems that are hosted on their subdomains instead of your own website (stealing your traffic). Their goal is expansion, they don't really care if it makes sense with the tone and structure of your website -- so again, not a good model to emulate. In fact, I would argue that this recent trend in ambiguous content (KBs and Help Centers) really only benefits such third-party companies.

For the vast majority of small and medium sized companies, I think a mix of FAQ, Tutorials, and perhaps Documentation (for tech stuff) makes sense, and Support can be a single page with active options like phone numbers, online chat or support tickets... also a Forum might be useful in some cases. Instead of having separate pages for your Videos, I think it's better to simply include a video in existing FAQ or other articles... it's better for SEO and avoids duplicate content, etc.

TLDR users don't care about buzzwords, and whatever fancy philosophy went into your site structure means nothing to them... they want easy, logical answers to their problems.