Day 40 - Interacton Design Techniques - Progressive Disclosure

Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that initially only shows users the most important actions required.

A print dialog box is a classic example of progressive disclosure. When you hit 'print' you're presented with a dialog box with a small set of choices. There's typically more print features and functionality that are initially hidden as to avoid end user confusion.

Using progressive disclosure techniques the user sees tasks unfolding via a dynamically expanding UI (e.g. a form grows with more choices).  This can help users form a correct understanding of the task.

Start by showing the UI controls for the first step of the task, and when the user's done with that step present them with the second step, and so on.   Users should have the ability to easily go back and change answers and change their mind about earlier choices.

Hiding advanced functionality early from novice users can lead to increased success of it's use later on.

While progressive disclosure techniques are applied in many products empirical research is required if you're going to employ these techniques.

Example of progressive disclosure: