A public help center enables businesses to engage with customers and build strong relationships. Help Centers are a large part of customer service. Furthermore, the revenue generated by the organization is very much contingent on its customer support/help center. Help center design is also an essential attribute in customer support as an eye-catching design. Along with simple navigation, it grabs the attention of your current and future clients and builds confidence through its general view and usability.
So, the equation is simple: you please the customer, and the customer returns the favor! Primarily, self-service has become one of the main Saas company's ways of providing customer support. Therefore, tutorials and technical troubleshooting are helpful for clients in understanding the product or service usage steps that are involved. Usually, they expect from help centers a clear, user-driven language, interaction, an engaging interface, sometimes a voice search, and, surely, easy-to-follow instructions. Finding a starting point when creating a help center or redesigning your existing one might be challenging. To that end, read about the essentials of designing a help center and the twenty help center designs to get some inspiration.
Zendesk Help Center Design Essentials and Designs to Get You Inspired
1. Etsy Help Center
The Etsy Help Center's look complements the style of their main website perfectly. It has a neat, simple layout that allows for easy, swift navigation, a search bar, and several featured articles at the top of the page. You can also get assistance and support via Etsy's community forums. Here are some other things their implementation got right:
- The first thing you see is a search bar
- Instant help with an order
- Separate categories for different searches (i.e., one for sale and one for shopping)
- The result page isn't endless and has clear pages, making it more digestible on smaller-screen devices
- The cookie notification isn't intrusive and does not block the search bar.
2. Snapchat Support
Snapchat support impresses users with the highest brand consistency. The use of Snapchat Yellow and the signature typeface confirms a smooth transition from the app to the web support portal. Also, it has:
- Intuitive navigation where the search bar is at the top of the page
- Great example of user-centric UI/UX
- Visual hierarchy & iconography
- "Problem-first" categorization.
3. Midjourney Support Page Design
The standout feature of the Midjourney help center is its focus on creative education and technical mastery. Moreover, the layout follows a "Video-First" approach to guide users through a brief introduction to generative AI.
Notable implementations:
- Thumbnail-driven learning and visualization
- A dedicated AI chat assistant is integrated into the help portal and trained specifically on Midjourney's documentation to provide instant answers to technical questions
- Dedicated billing portal.
4. Deezer Help Section Design
Deezer music streaming platform should also be included in the list of best help center examples. It focuses on a "clean-to-complex" hierarchy, ensuring users can find answers without feeling overwhelmed. Here are the benefits of this layout:
- The large, centered search bar is the top point, allowing users with specific issues to skip browsing
- Logical grouping. Related topics like "Payment Help" and "Deezer Family" are grouped together
- Appealing high-contrast design
- Hierarchical arrangement of sections from the Top level to the footer.
5. Kickstarter Help Center
The design of this Kickstarter help center contains clarity, accessibility, and user-centric navigation. Besides, it minimizes mental overload and helps people find answers quickly by categorizing information based on the user's specific role (Backer vs. Creator). Their customer support hub has the following features:
- Bold headings and plenty of white space prevent the page from feeling overwhelming, even though it contains a large amount of information.
- The layout immediately separates content into clear buckets based on why a user is visiting
- A "Contact us" link is placed directly under the search bar and in the top header if you haven't find a problem solving. Also AChat Widget (the green icon in the bottom right) is available for real-time assistance.
6. Dropbox Help Center
The Dropbox help page boasts a very captivating design that genuinely reflects the company's brand. The content on their help page is not just run-of-the-mill help center content. On this platform, you will also find several informative guides and an array of video tutorials for those who seek visual assistance with their queries/concerns.
7. Figma Help Center
Like Dropbox, Figma takes a creative and artistic approach to designing its help center. The use of bright colors and eye-catching images totally reflects the company’s brand style, making the help center an excellent extension of that brand! 
8. Intel Support
Intel is a world leader in producing essential technologies, and as expected, categories are neatly organized in its help center. The support page design has violet and blue colors used as a part of the design and is associated with the high-tech reminding users about the company itself. Except for its well-done structure, the most notable feature is that they offer clients to update their drivers automatically. It means that the company found out that the most searched topic was on updating drivers. So, users don't need to read all articles on this topic.
By the way, from the Support page, users can leave feedback, contact the support team, or address support for the community.
Considering this, analyze your main search queries and make their help center interaction one hundred percent useful.
9. Miro Help Center
The Miro Help Center design is built to empower users through a "self-service first" approach. Their approach to help center design is simple yet creative. So, all helpful information is accordingly accompanied by striking visuals that draw attention. Based on the Help Center's structure and features, here are the primary benefits of its design:
- The design organizes complex technical information into distinct, digestible categories with engaging visuals.
- A dedicated "Frequently Asked Questions" section, accessible via a drop-down, directly shows high-volume issues such as board-loading problems, login errors, and unexpected billing charges.
- Clear paths allow users to understand exactly where they are within the documentation hierarchy, making it easy to jump back to broader categories
10. Envato
Based on the images provided, the Envato Help Center design is built around accessibility and speed. It balances a welcoming, human-centric aesthetic with a highly organized layout that minimizes the time users spend searching for answers. Here are the primary benefits of this design:
GiffGaff Help Page
The GiffGaff Help Page boasts a splendid design and layout, which is aesthetically appealing. Furthermore, the help center page features an option to ask the community to help users themselves. It also provides a way to reach out to a support agent if you seek a more personalized response to your query. 
Moreover, the platform allows users to easily navigate and go to any article/section they want.
Help Scout
Help Scout prioritizes its customer service over everything else. Their help center is created with the customer experience in mind. The design is visually and functionally appealing, and all the articles are sorted according to the products. 
Moreover, if you delve deeper into the content, you will observe that Help Scout’s help center pays much attention to text formatting and visual enrichment. As a result, all of their pieces are easy to absorb. 
Letting the Help Center be an Extension of Your Brand
Adjusting the colors and adding illustrations that users see across the main website sure helps to make the help center feel more familiar. Here are some help centers that reflect and promote the company's brand.
Cards Against Humanity Help Center
Although the design of this store’s help center is pretty straightforward and basic, all the questions are very well sorted into categories. This means you do not need to scroll needlessly to find the information you search for. This help center is an ideal example of how you can use your company’s help center to promote your brand in a way that does not focus on visual designs. 
X Help Center
Indeed, X (old Twitter) has the most prominent customer support design. Like other help centers, it has a search bar and blocks with topics, but it uses the logo across the page to create a consistent brand identity. The layout is clean and intuitive, guiding users seamlessly through the support process. 
Accounting for Demographic Support
For many international businesses, handling multilingual requests poses a considerable difficulty. However, with the right approach, companies can simply alleviate a lot of sorting work from support staff by allowing the center to appear in the appropriate language. Here’s a notable example.
Pinterest Help Center
One of the key advantages of Pinterest is that it is available in just about any language. This addition is so good because it allows users to ask questions in their native language, making the query more detailed and accurate, therefore, making your support staff work less involved. 
WhatsApp Help Center
The help section of the WhatsApp website also allows you to choose the language to display information simply by navigating to the corner. Furthermore, the content displayed is adapted to the language, meaning it doesn't require extra scrolling or a magnifying feature of your browser. 
Visa Support Center
Another company is a world leader with a useful website help page - Visa. Its tactic is to provide a straightforward design where only FAQs are included, but the accent is directed at personal communication. So, customers can select a country they live in, and the hotline number changes depending on their choice. So, the Help Center responds to the customers' needs, as every case is different and requires live communication. 
Samsung Support
Some websites switch the language automatically depending on the user's location. However, if you don't want to implement such an option, you can propose website visitors change the language as Samsung does. It assumes whether you are from another country and a pop-up appears that offer to view the website in the maternal language. Besides, there is a search bar that automatically fills in itself, demonstrating to users some examples of possible questions. 
Humanization of Your Support Center
For many customers, a help center is something that usually involves a chatbot, AI support assistant, or other insentient interactions. Part of it is that often, support agents sound like robots due to following instructions, and part of it is that all pop-up messages look the same. Here are examples you can use to transform your help center:
Apple Help Center
Instead of placing a fancy banner with drawn images, the company decided to put a photo of real people using their devices. This personal touch instantly establishes a connection between the brand and its customers. By showcasing real people who use Apple products, the help center UI design creates a sense of authenticity and relatability. Users visiting the Help Center are more likely to feel understood and valued when they see others like themselves represented. 
Wistia Support Center
Another perfect example of humanizing your help page design comes from Wistia. The approach is slightly different because they don't have a team picture as a banner. However, the users can still get experience with a prominent personal touch. As a video marketing platform, Wistia provides a large number of videos with real support staff. Besides, numerous video tutorials make users feel that they are communicating in a personal way. 
Authenticating Users and Cases
Often, user requests and posts clutter support pages when they don't have a specific question or solution. This makes information search difficult for others. However, an accounting system can elegantly address this. Here's one of the help center page examples with such a solution.
Square Help Center
Prior to any user can submit a question, a registration pop-up appears. However, unlike other services where you have to make an account before posting, you can create a draft. This doesn’t pose a block beforehand and allows the user to express their concerns first and worry about registration later. 
Final Words
Well, you've learned some thoughtful help/support center designs. They all have:
- Unique features that help people;
- A search bar;
- Marvelous and simple designs that reflect brands;
- Easy-to-navigate instructions, and so on.
This article will undoubtedly serve as a valuable guide to help you to draw inspiration from various help centers and design a custom Zendesk theme. Furthermore, we hope these examples from familiar services will help you make an exceptional help center that will offer solutions to many user problems.
Help Center Design FAQs
How to design a help center?
Designing a help center involves setting clear goals, understanding user needs, and organizing information logically. Consider utilizing services like GrowthDot, which specializes in creating Zendesk help desk design. Ensure a user-friendly interface, maintain brand consistency, and regularly update content to reflect changing requirements.
What should be on a help center page?
Help center best practices typically include a search bar, categorized content, FAQs, contact information, tutorials, troubleshooting resources, community forums, feedback mechanisms, language options, and SEO optimization to enhance help center UX and accessibility.
How can I test the effectiveness of my support page design?
To evaluate the effectiveness of your help center page design, start by tracking user behavior through analytics, examining search queries, bounce rates, and the time spent on articles. Gather feedback via surveys or feedback widgets directly on the page. A/B testing different layouts or navigation structures can also reveal which design better supports your users. Most importantly, monitor ticket deflection rates; fewer support requests often indicate a more successful design.
What are some common mistakes in help center design?
A few frequent mistakes in help page UI design include cluttered layouts, poor mobile optimization, hard-to-read fonts, and burying important articles deep in the navigation. Another issue is not aligning the UI with your brand, which can make the experience feel disconnected. Avoid overly complex language or technical jargon. Clarity always wins in support content.
Bonus! Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg themes from GrowthDot
GrowthDot team designed a custom help center theme for Zendesk specifically. It takes into consideration all the recommendations mentioned below as well as suits all Zendesk features and details. So, find any element needed for a great help center design. Our Aarhus, Odense, and Aalborg themes are wonderful Zendesk help center examples, including a visible header, sidebar navigation, categories with customizable icons, "Prev"/"Next" buttons, and many more. In addition, themes are accessible on any device and enable extra formatting elements such as tables of contents, callout blocks, internal tabs, and other options to help you design your help center content in the way you want. We also create custom themes for Zendesk Guide and offer considerable discounts. Check out our Zendesk Theme Discounts page to learn how you can pay less for a custom help center design.
Unfamiliar to Zendesk? Read a detailed article to find out more: 'What is Zendesk? What is its purpose?'
Also, our team will gladly add a personal touch to your company, so feel free to contact us for branding and customization options for your Zendesk Knowledge Base!
