We delivered a content creation experience in line with Help Scout’s principles to empower both Docs beginners and experts alike to create content they’re proud of. A few areas in particular drove the team’s decision-making process along the way:

Make the article contents accurate and helpful

Anyone on the team can feel comfortable hopping in to make an update

No code is required to write and enrich articles

We lowered the barriers to entry when it came to article creation. No IT support required, no coding experience necessary — just an easy, accessible solution that allows non-technical folks to bring their ideas, get them on paper, and publish Docs articles effortlessly. The new shortcut menu enables users to add a variety of elements to articles quickly and easily. To access the shortcut menu, the article components, and plug-in options, users have two options:

Use slash commands, ‘/' , when typing in the editor.

Example: (Type ‘/callout’ to insert callouts or ‘/table’ to insert a table)

Click the plus button (+), which will appear at the start of new lines at the end of an article

Once you’ve accessed the shortcut menu, make your articles even more helpful by:

Utilizing tables to organize complex information.

Inserting callouts—specially styled blocks with colored backgrounds—to highlight important information.

Using blockquotes to draw attention to quotes throughout your article.

Adding images to enhance your writing

Knowledge bases should exist to alleviate frustrating experiences, not create more of them. That’s why we’ve made performance enhancements to make the editing and publishing experience as smooth as possible.

When drafting in the new editor, your content is auto-saved and will only update the draft version of an article, so you don’t have to worry about getting it right on the first try. The published version of the article will update only when you manually publish the article.