On the one hand, it's better to reduce clutter for the less common case of editing rather than reading. On the other hand, it's better to indicate availability of functionality without requiring hovering.
What do you think of a modal solution whereby individual editing interface elements are shown collectively only when the user indicates editing intent through a single, master control?
Personally, I like those. I assume you are talking of the interface on some sites with let's say a user profile and there is a visible [EDIT] button in the upper right. Click on it, and all the nice formatted readable content is replaced with editable text elements that can be tabbed through, and these might have formatting bars in them or section delete buttons. Different from the discussed scenarios where basic functions are hidden and one must move the mouse around to different places to see if they may or may not exist, which is bad and smacks of video game treasure finding design, which is fine for video games and absolutely not fine for other applications. With the proposed [EDIT] design it is quite clear what is going on by examining the page visually. A related issue would be that the same profile viewed by other than the owner of the profile would show no [EDIT] button at all, nor would such button appear to them under any circumstances. No features hidden because for non-owners, there is nothing to edit.
Comments
On the one hand, it's better to reduce clutter for the less common case of editing rather than reading. On the other hand, it's better to indicate availability of functionality without requiring hovering.
What do you think of a modal solution whereby individual editing interface elements are shown collectively only when the user indicates editing intent through a single, master control?
Personally, I like those. I assume you are talking of the interface on some sites with let's say a user profile and there is a visible [EDIT] button in the upper right. Click on it, and all the nice formatted readable content is replaced with editable text elements that can be tabbed through, and these might have formatting bars in them or section delete buttons. Different from the discussed scenarios where basic functions are hidden and one must move the mouse around to different places to see if they may or may not exist, which is bad and smacks of video game treasure finding design, which is fine for video games and absolutely not fine for other applications. With the proposed [EDIT] design it is quite clear what is going on by examining the page visually. A related issue would be that the same profile viewed by other than the owner of the profile would show no [EDIT] button at all, nor would such button appear to them under any circumstances. No features hidden because for non-owners, there is nothing to edit.