progressive-disclosure_skill

Overview

This skill teaches progressive disclosure for interface design: reveal minimal, essential controls up front and layer additional options as users need them. It helps reduce cognitive load for beginners while keeping fast access and shortcuts for expert users. The goal is clearer interfaces, fewer errors, and discoverable power features.

How this skill works

The skill inspects UI flows and settings panels to identify information density, task frequency, and user paths. It recommends a depth hierarchy (essential → common → advanced → expert), patterns for in-place expansion, and tactics like smart defaults and contextual revelation. It also flags opportunities for search and shortcuts as an expert escape hatch.

When to use it

• Designing forms, onboarding, or settings panels with many options
• Building dashboards with mixed audiences (novice and power users)
• Creating feature-rich products where discoverability matters
• Redesigning cluttered pages to improve learnability and task completion
• Implementing mobile or constrained-space interfaces where space is scarce

Best practices

• Default to simplicity: show only what a typical user needs and expose more on demand
• Structure layers: ensure users can complete core tasks entirely at the top layer
• Expand in-place: avoid navigating to new pages when revealing options to preserve spatial memory
• Provide parallel paths: a guided beginner flow plus shortcuts or search for experts
• Use smart defaults and contextual revelation so choices are minimized until relevant
• Document advanced layers clearly and provide easy escape routes (collapse, close, keyboard shortcuts)

Example use cases

• Onboarding wizard that shows only essential steps, with an advanced settings link for power users
• Settings panel where common toggles are visible and detailed configuration appears in expandable sections
• Data table with expandable rows to show row-level details without leaving the list view
• Feature-rich editor that uses ⌘K search to let experienced users jump directly to commands
• Mobile app where a compact summary shows primary info and a ‘More’ control expands secondary data