Progressive disclosure

Progressive disclosure is an interaction design pattern often used for making applications easier to learn and less error-prone. It does that by defering some advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen.

The classic example of this pattern in action is the print dialog box in the Mac OS. When you command the system to print a page, only a small subset of choices are exhibited in the dialog box:

Print Dialog Box - Basic View

Initial print dialog box with few choices. The photo inside the dialog box is credited to Nate Johnston.

And if the user wants more advanced options, they can click on the "Show Details" button and disclosure these features in a secondary screen:

Print Dialog Box - Advanced View

Print dialog box showing advanced features

In physical world Progressive disclosure is used by modern theme park designer. The long waiting lines for the rides can scare away many visitors, so only a small segment of the line is made visible from any vantage point. As people move ahead in line, they only get to see discrete portions of the entire line. This design makes the waiting a bit more bearable.

History

Kristina Hooper Woolsey, a founding member of the Apple Human Interface Group, wrote in 1985 what could be considered as the seminal idea for selectively disclosure to new users how a system works:

"In the design of interfaces one must also consider carefully how one selectively informs a user about a particular system, providing well-chosen bits and pieces that can constitute a general understanding of a system."

See also

• Disclosure widget
• Chunking_(writing)