What’s the term for a UI design pattern where you progressively educate the user about advanced features the more they use a web service?
Progressive disclosure
I said in an online private message that I was going to relaunch Your Price this year, and that Your Price is the highest paying GPT View site that I made $50 revenue over 4 months paying 7 active members $14.50, which is a growth of 71%. I said that this was all thanks to my own virtual currency called ycrows that I made up, and that GPT View site pays people for viewing adverts.
In a sentence:
Your Price is the highest paying GPT site thanks to a virtual currency called ycrows, of which most of the earning opportunities are links.
That sounds simple right?
Well apparently that wasn’t explanatory enough, and Marie wanted an explanation of how it worked. She knew it had to be operating on some sophisticated system to be giving so much money away and make a profit. She wanted to know how that exactly worked.
Cue the epic sighs.
The explanation spanned several paragraphs.
There is a reason why Your Price members never need help as to how to use the site, and why Marie did. There’s a reason why Your Price has no help section, yet its members know exactly what to do on the site. That reason is progressive enhancement.
When users join Your Price, they have no idea what a ycrow is. They don’t even know the site uses ycrows.
Examples of websites which don’t use progressive disclosure is your online banking website, because they give you all the options all at once. Writers Cafe is another example.
Let me know what you think about this, if you have any thoughts about this.