Write a Help Center people use
How teem's own Help Center is organized, and the parts worth copying for your product: five starter articles, task titles, answer-first summaries.
You're reading teem's own Help Center, and it's built to be copied. Here's what we did and why.
Start with five articles
You don't need fifty. Most products cover most questions with these:
- What it is, in one screen. Ours: What teem is, and how the pieces fit together.
- Getting started, the first thing a new user has to do. Ours: Install teem in your app.
- Your top three how-tos: the questions your inbox already gets most.
- Troubleshooting, for when it doesn't work. Ours: The widget doesn't show up.
- Billing: what it costs and what happens when it ends. Ours: Trial, price and what happens when it ends.
After that, read your inbox every week. A question you've answered twice is an article.
Order topics the way readers meet them
Our topics run in the order a customer meets each part of teem: getting started, the widget, conversations, feedback, the Help Center, settings, troubleshooting, billing. Drag yours into the same kind of order on the Help Center page. Readers scan from the top, so the top should be where they are.
Titles are tasks or questions
Use the words a reader would type into search.
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| Slack integration | Why didn't my Slack reply post? |
| Theming | Make the widget look like your product |
| Roles | Owners and members: who can do what |
The summary answers the question
Readers see the summary in search results and in the widget before they open anything, so put the answer there. The summary of our billing article gives the price, the seats, the trial and what happens if you don't pay. Most readers never need to open it.
Give every article the same shape
- The answer, in the first line.
- The steps.
- What to check if it didn't work.
Use the format that fits
The editor handles more than paragraphs. Use each one where it earns its place.
| Format | Use it for | Our example |
|---|---|---|
| Table | Comparing options or roles | Owners and members |
| Checklist | Things to do once, in order | Before you go live |
| Code block | Anything a reader will copy | Open the widget from your own button |
| Screenshot | Showing where to click | Answer from Slack |
| Numbered steps | A sequence an agent can follow | Recipes: hand these jobs to an agent |
| Definition list | Short facts with labels | Trial, price and what happens when it ends |
Images need an https:// link and alt text that says what's in them. teem drops an image that has no alt text.
Write for agents too
AI agents read your Help Center through the widget's search and through MCP, and they do best with exact names: the button's label in bold, the full path to a setting, an error message word for word. If a reader might paste an error into search, put that exact error in the article.
Keep it current with an agent
Give an agent a key and ask it to check your articles against your latest changelog. It can search, draft and edit with teem's MCP tools, and its drafts wait for you, because nothing goes live until someone presses Publish. Write your Help Center covers the editor and the tools.