Designing with Progressive Enhancement: Building the Web that Works for Everyone

Chapter Eight. Collapsible Content

With the ever-growing complexity of websites and web applications, designers often choose to selectively hide and show content on the screen, either by progressively revealing content based on user actions, or by providing content in collapsible blocks that users can selectively toggle on and off.

Content blocks that let users selectively toggle their display have a myriad of common design forms and even more names—collapsibles, spin-downs, toggle panels, twisties, and content disclosures, to name just a few. There’s a wide range of scenarios where collapsible content is useful:

• For detailed information that isn’t essential to see at all times or for all users, but may be helpful in select cases, such as ...