FAQs or frequently asked questions were initially created for email list serve venues. For that purpose FAQs made sense, since the list managers were constantly answering the same questions day after day ad naseum.
Since they worked well for email lists, they are used in many other applications. The FAQ has become de rigueur in online software.
FAQs are not very useful when we do not have a real world collection of questions from the actual users.
In fact, as software on the Internet is more complex than an email list, the FAQs cannot serve the user adequately. The offered FAQ is either too complex to find anything, or not comprehensive enough to serve the user with information they need.
Unfortunately product people love them, because they can sell the product. So instead of getting help with a problem the user gets sales speak, technical jargon and/or poorly written answers to questions someone thought up in a rush to hand it over to the designer or developer. That is not a best practice, as it does not help the user and support still gets emails, chats, and phone calls. Client support receives: “I can’t find my question in the FAQ.” Or many users ignore the FAQ, because they know it is a waste of their time.
Frequently asked questions are a hammer, which is fine if you have a piece of wood and a nail. If you have a multi-dimensional object with hinges, hooks and braces, the hammer just does not serve.
So when you are planning a complex project, remember to plan ahead and have someone who will write a clear, easy to use, step by step user guide. A User Guide with screen shots is ideal for the most complex projects.
Your users will be so much more satisfied. And leave the FAQ to the task it serves well, the email list.
Documentation mantra: F.A.Q. is not always the best tool.