[IxDA Discuss] Best practice: hiding groups of widgets within a complex form?

[Alexander Baxevanis]

I guess you may have already thought of this but let's take a step
back: why would users need to "simplify" the form? I suppose by
simplify you mean to selectively hide some parts of the form that are
not relevant to a particular user. If this is the case, is there
really no other way to hide the irrelevant parts automatically
(according to the user type/preferences etc.)? Or, if there are
interdependencies between the form parts (e.g. part C needs to be
filled in only if the user has selected something in Part B) then you
may want to look at the "Responsive Disclosure" Pattern:

http://designinginterfaces.com/Responsive_Disclosure

On 6/13/07, Alan Wexelblat <awexelblat at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out how to give people a way to simplify a
> visually complex form.  This is a PC desktop application, not Web, and
> I don't have the option to break the form apart.
>
> Current technology is something like an enhanced group box
> (http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/ruby/colortooltutorial/dialog3grpbox.png)
> with a button-like target in the corner (like a + or open/close
> chevron) that would collapse related groups of widgets, or shrink the
> area in some way.
>
> I haven't seen any good examples of UIs that do this, or design
> patterns I could look at for inspiration.  Anyone got any thoughts?
>
> --
> --Alan Wexelblat
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