10 Help Center Design Examples

Want to build a great Help Center for your product or service? Or want to improve on the current one?

Research shows that customers prefer self-service options over all other channels. Help centers are the focal point of the customer self-service landscape and the thought you put into designing yours can make or break your customer experience.

Your presence here proves that you care about your customers and value their time, and it will pay off.

In this article, we are going to go over 10 innovative and functional help center designs for you to get inspired and use the learning in your help center.

10 Best Examples of Help Centers to Create One

1. An advanced search in highly organized Docs – Document360

Being one of the leading AI-powered knowledge-base software, Document360 is an excellent Help Center example. It is a hub of highly organized documentation with advanced AI search capabilities.

Document360 follows all best practices in the help center, from using the knowledge of its customers to making use of multiple content formats.

Its Help Center is complete with articles, set-up guides, troubleshooting guides, FAQs, and how-to videos. It is a treasure trove of information arranged in a highly user-friendly manner.

Customers can also raise support tickets, give feedback, and opt for live chat with the team.

They stand out by providing a complete accessibility menu that shows that they care about their customers.

Its advanced AI-powered search functionality it to a new level by providing a ‘Browse articles’ button right at the beginning of the help center design. Clicking this button takes you to a knowledge base of highly organized articles on all topics related to the product.

The usage of simple icons keeps the design simple and clear and the categories are intuitive and guided.

You can further explore by either opening a folder of your topic of interest or using the search button to ask exactly what you are looking for. You can also click Ctrl+K on your keyboard to open the search bar in less than a second and type in your query.

Also read: Help Center Best Practices for Better Customer Self-Service

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2. Toggled categories with subtle support – Windows help

Being a vast product like Windows can make it extremely challenging to satisfy each customer, but Windows has laid out all the help possible in its Help Center.

The main categories show up in the front as toggle buttons and you can instantly start looking for your question by clicking the relevant category.

Each category takes you to a limited number of options on that topic, and in case you need more help, there is a search bar at the end of the page.

If you do not find your answer even then, you can ask the Windows communities which I personally find most helpful. That is because the community’s advice comes from experience working on that topic and can be easier to follow for a non-technical person. 

You can choose from the Microsoft community, Microsoft tech community, Windows insider community, and Microsoft 365 insider community.

3. More options more problems – ProfitWell

Landing on a Help Center page with too many options can overwhelm customers rendering them indecisive. It could be that the sheer number of decisions available forces people to overthink their decisions, which complicates the decision-making process.

So, ProfitWell has a rather simple Help Center that focuses on avoiding any confusion among its customers. 

It gives a fixed six options on its Help Center and divides them further down into categories of popular topics. For example, when customers click on export data, they have the option of exporting data to their API,  Drift, HubSpot, Intercom, and Pulse Notifications.

There is also a search button to type in your queries in case you do not get your answers within the categories given. Interestingly, when you do that, the app comes with lots of prompts to help you find the right answer.

For example, as soon as I started typing ‘how to’, the search bar came out with a lot of prompts from different categories, including measure, retain, and export data.

4. Reinforce comfortability – Monday

Monday offers a very comprehensive yet simple and well-structured help center. Their motto is clear with their welcome line ‘Find the right answers’ and they help you every step of the way to find them faster.

A warm and friendly first impression for newbies and experienced customers alike, they start by saying ‘Ask me anything’ in the search bar – comfortability being the key here.

Top searches are shown right below to help customers find answers as quickly as possible.

Then the knowledge base is divided into specific topics, with each topic opening in a separate tab, so you always have the main Help Center page to resort to. Each category page also starts with a search bar prompting users to type in their queries maintaining the comfortability of the search.

The video tutorials are categorized separately as an easy pick for the onboarding customers, and pop up in different colors making them super-friendly. Even the help center articles are divided into popular, recently added, and FAQ categories to keep things as breezy as possible.

5. Anticipate customer behaviors – Netflix

Netflix Help Center comes with an array of resources to answer common questions or resolve issues without having to contact customer support directly.

You can search for specific topics using keywords in the search bar or browse through specific categories.

The categories are available to resolve your issue, whether you are experiencing technical difficulties, billing inquiries, or need assistance with account settings.

They have a country-specific content grievance section and industry-specific sections like parental control. Every section contains tons of related articles based on popular questions and issues and a list of actionable content around performing a specific task.

For example, under the parental control section, you can create a profile for your kids, set profile maturity ratings or even block titles, turn autoplay previews on or off, and much more. Under each of these sections, you have a step-by-step guide to complete the action, like this:

So, Netflix has done an amazing job at anticipating customer behaviors and creating a truly intuitive Help Center.

6. Option to reach for assistance – GiffGaff/ GitLab

GitLab encourages all its users to search its documentation as the first step.

They also have a support ticket option for all customers as the most direct support option. For all further help, GitLab offers support depending on the plan they have with an entire dropdown list of support levels:

Out of all the examples, GitLab is for the most technical audience. If your business offers multiple plans and serves a technical audience, you might want to spend a lot of time understanding the design of the GitLab help center.

7. Visually engaging and interactive content – Canva

Based on its customer analysis, Canva, a graphic design platform, has a very practical and educational approach to its help center. So, they have put the search bar right in front as you access their help center – whatever you are looking for, simply start typing and the results pop up.

Popular topics are also indicated below the search bar, so you can quickly click on them and get your answer immediately.

For everything else, help is arranged under topics like account settings, Cannva plans, editing, and designing, etc.

A list of top articles is given under customer categories below to expedite the resolution of your specific issue. And direct options for help like a solutions library and design school are also at your fingertips.

8. Community-driven support – Hubspot Academy

HubSpot Academy stands apart in its Help Center approach by making it completely community-driven. Customers can find answers and solutions by searching within the community for all queries and issues.

The interface is colorful and peppy indicating that learning at HubSpot Academy is a fun experience.

Depending on how generic or specific the customer query is, a lot of related posts come up. Customers can further refine their query by location, date, post type, and more. The best thing is that users can not only ask for help but also give help by answering posts that they have experience in, fostering the community feel.

Think about a mix of a Facebook group and a Quora forum. You can see the number of upvotes an answer has as well as the number of replies and that also helps you gauge the dependability of a solution.

9. Help center as an extension of brand – DropBox

Dropbox’s minimalist help center design makes it easy to focus on the content, genuinely reflecting the company’s brand.

The interesting part is that their Help Center also has a sharp learning focus.

In the first half of their Help Center, they focus on encouraging users to learn how to use Dropbox. They also have a separate section that deals with their different products and how to use and troubleshoot them.

The second half offers various support channels like popular articles and community posts. For those who want to invest more time and prefer interactive learning, Dropbox offers self-guided as well as live instructor-led courses.

10. Addressing demographic needs – WhatsApp Help Center

True to its reputation of connecting the world irrespective of demographics, you can change the Whatsapp Help Center language from the dropdown menu in the right-hand corner.

It also has one of the cleanest help center designs, covering everything in a small space and yet keeping it uncluttered. The use of light yet bright colors makes it user-friendly and breaks down the monotony and seriousness of the whole Help Center vibe.

A search bar is present first on every page.

All the topics you could need help with are right there in front of your eyes in the left-hand sidebar. Each topic opens up into further subcategories with specific questions under each of them. Simple yet comprehensive.

All the answers are displayed separately for three types of users – Android, iOS, and web. You can also copy the link to the answer/ solution and share it with others. WhatsApp also collects feedback for each answer to continuously improve their solutions, just like Microsoft.

Conclusion

I hope that these 10 help center examples got your creative juices flowing and you already have tons of ideas you want to execute in your help center.

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