Does anyone have any best practices on how to ask a good question and what to put in the body?

thaas
thaas Vanilla Seedling
edited September 2022 in Talk Community #1

I want to provide our audience with a short tutorial to help them get quicker/better responses in our Q+A community. I'm looking for any best practices you've seen work on how to write/phrase questions appropriately and what type of information is valuable to consider in the body

Best Answer

  • Rav Singh
    Rav Singh Vanilla Sundae
    edited September 2022 #2 Answer ✓

    Hi @thaas

    While I've created lots of content focusing on how to use our Community and its features I certainly need to do a refresher on this for our users as well. Its a number of years old now (before we switched to Vanilla) however one of our superusers created a good intro article containing tips on how to ask a question and encouraging sharing as much info as possible since our Community is product support-centric.

    I'll share it below if you're interested however you've given me the impetus to give it a revamp that is more focused (and relevant now that we're on Vanilla).

    https://community.reckon.com/discussion/6081778


Answers

  • Rav Singh
    Rav Singh Vanilla Sundae
    edited September 2022 #3 Answer ✓

    Hi @thaas

    While I've created lots of content focusing on how to use our Community and its features I certainly need to do a refresher on this for our users as well. Its a number of years old now (before we switched to Vanilla) however one of our superusers created a good intro article containing tips on how to ask a question and encouraging sharing as much info as possible since our Community is product support-centric.

    I'll share it below if you're interested however you've given me the impetus to give it a revamp that is more focused (and relevant now that we're on Vanilla).

    https://community.reckon.com/discussion/6081778


  • thaas
    thaas Vanilla Seedling
    #4

    Hi @Rav Singh - thank you for sharing this. It is helpful and also validating. I was starting down a very similar path and this has given me more ideas.

    Here are some points I captured while doing some other research. Not sure if any will be helpful to you but thought I would share:

    Writing good questions isn't always easy. Here are some tips that may help you:

    • Keep your questions simple - long compound questions force respondents to keep a lot of information in their heads and are likely to produce unpredictable results. Use the body to expand upon what you need
    • If a question can be misinterpreted, it will be - Be clear, concise, and always beware of imprecise language
    • Include only one topic per question (avoid "double-barreled" questions) - If you want to be able to come up with specific recommended actions, you need specific questions
    • Make sure the respondent has enough information - use the body to provide additional 
    • Pay attention to the category you are picking
    • Use tags


    Poorly written questions may result in 

    • answer(s) you aren't looking for
    • additional time is taken to rephrase, provide clarification, or add more details
    • frustrated respondents


  • BrendanP
    BrendanP HLV Staff
    #5

    Another potential idea is to use the discussion template addon to include some info you would be expecting folks to include when they ask their question.

    I referenced it here in another thread:

    https://success.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/4578#Comment_4578

    support/csm/implementation pm could enable and advise you on that feature if you want to test it out.

  • thaas
    thaas Vanilla Seedling
    #6

    @BrendanP - thank you. @hannahhowle got us set up with the template yesterday and I'm currently testing it out

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