Introduction
The wizard floorplan guides users to complete a complex and long task as they follow steps. However, it’s challenging for users to keep track of the progress or remember all entered values as they proceed multiple steps. By having a summary card in the wizard, users will be able to easily refer to entered values and get an overview on upcoming steps. Also, the card can include an overview that summarizes the expected result of the task being processed in the wizard such as the total cost of a new object.
Usage
A summary card can be optionally based on the severity and the complexity of a task done in the wizard.
- The wizard has more than 5 steps or includes complex configurations distributed in multiple steps. Users may want to go back to previous steps to check what they have selected to make a choice in later steps.
- You want users to get ready for upcoming steps and values that will be configured.
- The total cost or its estimate will be calculated by entered values and you want to share it with users upfront.
- You want to share information that can be useful in all steps.
- The wizard consist of less than 5 steps and configurations in each step are independent to each other. It’s unlikely that users need to refer to entered values in different steps.
- The wizard has less than 2 steps. Do not use the wizard for this case as separating a simple task into two steps will only make the tasks as well as the summary card unnecessarily complex. Consider restructuring the task to have it completed in one page.
Anatomy
Behavior & Interactions
Placement
The card is placed on the right-most side of the screen and its position is fixed. The space between the card and the right edge (A) is 3 rem. The rest of the area is reserved for the actual content of the wizard.
Responsiveness
The width of the summary card is fixed (20.25 rem) so it remains the same in any window size. Only the content area will be resized when the window size changes.
The height of the component grows as more items are added to the details panel. However, give 1 rem space between the component and the footer (or the bottom of the page). If the component can’t display all items, add the scrollbar to the details panel to make all items accessible.
Update Content
All items in the summary card should be immediately updated when users change a corresponding item in the wizard. Inconsistency in values between the summary card and the wizard will confuse users and slow down their task.
Best Practices
Group related items in the details panel
As the card can include a long list of items in the details panel, separate related items into groups to reduce users’ cognitive load. They should be able to easily read the contents, recognize items, and relate them to ones in the wizard.
Design the overview that serves your use case best
The overview of the summary card provides the most critical information that users can refer to during the entire process. When you design the overview, consider using different visual elements such as a chart or large text to emphasize the information.
Good short UI copies
Rewrite long UI copies of items so that they can fit into the narrow summary card. This can simplify the content and help users understand the info immediately. In case the short UI copy doesn’t work, consider using a popover that can be triggered from the label.
Specifications
Resources
Click "Create Instance" on the Instances page (home page) to access the wizard with the summary card.