Hodges' model: a tool for progressive disclosure

[Warning! This post extends (plays havoc with) the meaning of progressive disclosure.]

Trying to get on the surf board of the latest web-programming kind is proving to be very difficult. For many years now and as acknowledged on W2tQ the four links pages - one per care domain - have become a monster in motion. As the user scrolls down the links pages the sense of info overload becomes overwhelming. That is assuming they do scroll. There is no prompt apart from the right-hand scroll bar suggesting 'more'. Even though the links are only sitting in html tables, the experience is not exactly an exemplar of user interface design. It is poor on other counts too:

• The arrangement of the rows and categories are mine.
• Yes, reveal the holistic bandwidth of the care knowledge domains, but whatever happened to Socratic dialogue, discovery and subtlety? The user should be able to have a dialogue with the system - with Hodges' model. The holistic aspects should be revealed gradually, an act of discovery not a slap straight in the face.

Several of the books and magazines I've been reading over the years and more recently speak of the user interface design technique of progressive disclosure. Hodges' model is progressive disclosure incarnate in several respects:

• The model is revealed to the student progressively as the student learns (this means of course that Hodges' model remains forever dynamic).
• A further level of unfolding occurs in curriculum development terms. As the curriculum is revealed and subjected to review and development. In this way the model is constantly pruned, grafting may take place - such is the model's need to be progressive (and academe's need to ensure the model is fit for purpose).
• As the previous post hinted progressive disclosure is a baton. So, who do you want to pass it to? Remember the model is neutral. It does not prescribe. Is the patient free to progressively disclose, or is the process directed by the health or social care agent? Perhaps, things are driven by a bureaucracy, which must in turn provide its own progressive disclosure c/o freedom of information legislation?

There are other priorities, but looking at the links pages I'm wondering if I can finally through jQuery display just the categories and then have the user toggle the actual links display on and off. Having the user reorganise the listing would be cool. Then they would really become a part of the progressive disclosure, but it may be better to just toggle before I drag and drop.