Can people find answers on their phone?

Most knowledge bases pass every test at a desk and then fail the test that matters: someone on a train, one thumb, patchy signal, a manager waiting for an answer. They type three words, get forty results, and ring the service desk instead. That is where self-service quietly fails. Not because the articles are wrong, but because nobody checked whether a person on a phone could actually find them.

This article argues that calling knowledge done is premature until mobile search has been tested in the conditions people actually use. It sets out three plain questions: does a short, badly spelled search on a phone return the right article in the first three results; who tested it, and were they on a phone or a laptop; and would your busiest people rather search or call? Mobile search is only finished when it returns what people expect on the device they actually use. It is a small test, and it decides whether the knowledge base gets used. Join the Knowledge and self-service conversation on ESM's Exchange to share how you test it.