Optional Detail On Demand

Examples: Context:  A large percentage of the available information or actions (termed "items" for the rest of this pattern) can be considered details, and are unneeded most of the time.   This is a very common situation which can happen in any of the primary patterns -- Narrative (footnotes), High-density Information Display (extra information), Form (optional information provided by the user), and so on.

Problem:  When should these usually-unneeded items be presented to the user, and how?

Forces:

Solution:  Up front, show the user that which is most important and most likely to get used. Details and further options which won't be needed most of the time -- say 20% or less of expected uses -- can be hidden in a separate space or working surface (another dialog, another piece of paper, behind a blank panel).  Mark it clearly so that a user who needs this optional detail can find it immediately.  Place the "handle" to it (push button, panel door latch, etc.) very close to the primary working surface, where everything else is, so a user doesn't have to go hunting for it. Make sure that very little effort is needed to get at it.

Resulting Context:  You need to figure out which items are most needed, and which are optional.  Know your users' needs well.  If you can't make a good enough guess on that basis, try putting a few items on the top level and the rest hidden; observe your users using the artifact, and as it becomes clear which items are the most often used, "promote" them to the top level (and "demote" the ones at the top level that never get used).  In spite of this hit-or-miss approach, try to make a coherent design out of the items at the top level.

This is a very common, simple way to manage complexity in an artifact. It can sometimes fail, however. Consider a user who might always want to see the optional detail: from the designer's point of view, perhaps only 10% of the total uses of the artifact require the optional detail, but from this user's point of view, it is 100%! Now the user has to take an extra step, every single time they use it, to see what they need to see. If this is likely to happen, think about ways of making the optional detail always visible, if the user takes some small action (like propping open a panel door).

Note that you can nest these inside each other.  In fact, some computer applications bury optional details inside chains of dialogs that can be 4 or 5 dialogs deep!  This generally doesn't go over well with users.  It's easy to lose your place, for instance, and it's hard to remember where something is or explain to someone else how to find it; it also takes a lot of time and effort to reach something that deep.

Notes:  If the optional detail takes up very little space, don't bother with this pattern; you might as well fit it all into the primary working surface.


Comments to:  jtidwell@alum.mit.edu
Last modified May 17, 1999

Copyright (c) 1999 by Jenifer Tidwell.  All rights reserved.