Visibility

Visibility is the ease with which a user can access the necessary components or information within a system. High visibility reduces cognitive load by making information readily accessible without extensive navigation or memory recall.

Poor visibility can lead to errors and inefficiency, as users spend time navigating to (or worse, searching for) features rather than completing tasks. In contrast, high visibility allows for quick location of information, facilitating a smoother workflow. However as you can imagine, having too much information visible at any given time can overwhelm users, so as you can see, visibility is about having as much pertinent information available without creating too much visual noise, as if often the case, it is very much a balancing act.

As a final note, there is absolutely such a thing as too much progressive disclosure, sometimes controls should be at the top level.

Testing

1. Check the visibility of frequently used tools and panels and information
   1. Are these buried behind layers of progressive disclosure when they should be more obvious?
   2. If the controls are in a prominent position, is the control obvious/ visible?
2. Evaluate how easily users can compare elements side by side
   1. Can users compare designs, versions, styles?
   2. Can they do this without losing their place in the current workflow?
3. Ensure visibility of object hierarchies
4. Assess memory load for switching between views
   1. When loading a new view is it automatically populated appropriately based on previous selections for example.

Check After Improvement

• Conceptual Burden
• Brain Strain.