> Too many elements are a distraction.
> What is the affordance of invisibility?
There is a middle though: instead of either making it invisible OR cluttered, couldn't you just design it with a small clue, such as an arrow, which would open a drop-down menu when rolled over (on a computer) or tapped on (on a touch device)?
A drop-down menu with a small icon to prompt the user would hit the middle between simplicity and obnoxious prompting.
The solution to clutter isn't to hide functionality. It's to have your software do /less things/. If you need it to do more things, make those few things your software does a flexible set of tools that can be combined in novel ways.
Update: (I got downvoted so I thought I'd modify the post a bit, hopefully it's better?)
in any case, when it comes to software design, clutter isn't the worst thing software can do. Hiding things is, however, pretty close to the worst thing you can do. At least, without a consistent and obvious method of discovering the hidden things.
> When it comes to software design, clutter isn't the worst thing software can do. Hiding things is. So, to paraphrase JWZ: "You have a problem with clutter, so you hide it. Now you have two problems." Thus, the solution to clutter isn't to hide the functionality because that creates more problems not less. The solution to clutter is to have fewer functions.
That's really good. Some reading this might be confused by fewer functions as meaning dumbing down and restricting the user, so let me expand that. That's not what it is. Fewer functions means making things simpler to the point that they are generic enough to have much more functionality, but with fewer explicit functions. For example, the unix command line is pretty simple to look it, but unlimited in what you can do. Type whatever you like there. The pipe thing lets you stitch things together in combination.
I really, really like this idea as a solution to fix possible hidden rollovers usability issues. Like the best ideas it sounds obvious once you hear it. If it is well executed (I would imagine something clean and simple yet recognizable like a point within a circle) and when/where it does work, then - like you said - it's a solution that works for both touch and rollover, and that's exciting too.
Another compromise solution is to put text on the page, but to grey it out, or otherwise make it less visually distinctive according to it's lack of importance.
Some sort of clue would be really helpful. Advanced options can do in an options panel, but there needs to be someway to see the options panel exists.
Despite my horror and long post, I myself do use one form of invisible element in my own designs. Context menus. Right click and get tools that are relevant to what the mouse is currently above. This is a useful place to stick shortcuts for advanced users. It's not as great for things that are very rarely used. But here is the thing. Although there are definitely those who use them all the time, the hard core users, almost no normal users use them or are aware of them. In usability testing, if you ask someone to perform a task on an interface they have just seen for the first time, not even 1 in 100 will be able to do it if it depends on right clicking to find a menu item with the command. Users do not click on things they don't see. Since I use right click menus all the time it's easy to think others do as well. Well they will if they see it in a tutorial video, or someone demonstrating to them. I have had customers that have used my designs for many years and I meet them and go to demo something and when they see a right click use, invariably the response is something like "Oh, I didn't know you could do that!" Not right click, but do the hidden function. They know there is a right mouse button. They just don't use it to find contextual menus. Right click menus are there for the advanced users. So there's stuff that is faster to get to with the menu, but I try to always have another way to do the same thing. Rarely there are very advanced things. And yes I put them there to not clutter up the interface. Sometimes it is some rarely used function for which there is no obvious way to present it in a UI. It shouldn't be the only way to do anything done commonly, and probably shouldn't be the only way to do anything important. If it's something trivial and optional to use of the program, sure it can be an easter egg to be found by the hard core users.
Hide all but the most common actions on a page, but make it clear and consistent where the other actions will be found.
