Progressive disclosure
Organizing an interface so it first shows the few options almost everyone needs and keeps advanced or rarely used ones one step away, visible to whoever looks for them.
What problem it addresses
Solves a common clash: making a product easy for beginners and, at the same time, complete for experts.
An example
An illustrative example: the window for printing a document.
Beginners don't get lost and those who need more know where to look, as long as the way to advanced options is visible and says what lies behind it.
Why it happens
What you see first tells people what matters.
Beginners focus on what is useful and make fewer mistakes.
Experts find the advanced options without wading through what they rarely use.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Decide what goes first using usage data and by observing people, not by intuition.
Avoid
Hiding something many people need behind “More options”.
Don’t fall for it
More than two levels of hidden options is too many: simplify or gather the advanced options in one place.
Almost 1/4 of the time
What the research says
Carroll and Carrithers (1984) blocked typical beginner errors in a word processor. With that reduced version people learned faster and better; the group using the full program spent almost a quarter of their time recovering from those errors.
Single study. The study is about learning a program, not about any hidden menu. Nielsen (2006) warns that more than two levels of hidden options usually make people get lost.
Connections
Authors and works
- 1982
David C. Smith, Charles Irby, Ralph Kimball, Bill Verplank and Eric Harslem
Describing the Xerox Star, they called hiding complexity until it is needed “progressive disclosure”, as in its property sheets.
- 1984
John M. Carroll and Caroline Carrithers
Tested a “training wheels” interface that left out what most confused beginners.
- 2006
Jakob Nielsen
Spread the idea in web design and set its conditions: split frequent from rare features well and make the way to advanced options visible.
Sources
Original sources
- Smith, D. C., Irby, C., Kimball, R., Verplank, B., & Harslem, E. (1982). Designing the Star user interface. BYTE, 7(4), 242–282. View source: Smith, D. C., Irby, C., Kimball, R., Verplank, B., & Harslem, E. (1982)
- Carroll, J. M., & Carrithers, C. (1984). Training wheels in a user interface. Communications of the ACM, 27(8), 800–806. View source: Carroll, J. M., & Carrithers, C. (1984)
Secondary sources
- Nielsen, J. (2006, December 3). Progressive disclosure. Nielsen Norman Group. View source: Nielsen, J. (2006, December 3)
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