GRI guidance density comparison (D-g-4)
A decision exhibit, not a reviewed wireframe round. It exists so the PM can visually judge one open decision: what a GRI data-entry page looks like with guidance shown against guidance collapsed under the compact density setting, and what tells a user that guidance is hidden. Decision reference: D-g-4 in project-docs/requirements/gri-i1-guidance-layer-spec.md section 7.4, with the slot and density model from gri-explain-layer-design.md.
The one rule this exhibit draws
Under the proposed D-g-4 rule, density collapse only ever hides EXPLANATORY content that renders through an explain slot. Content that is functional by fiat (refusal reasons and their state reports, warn strips, ruling-pinned text, and composed catalog guidance) renders byte-identical in both densities and never enters a collapsible slot. The comparison page draws exactly that boundary; if any always-on element differs between the two halves, the drawing is wrong and the review should say so.
Pages
- 01Density comparison, one surface twice
One table-answer entry surface drawn twice side by side at half scale: comfortable density with all guidance shown on the left, compact density with explanatory guidance collapsed on the right. The exact differences are enumerated under the drawings.
- 02Hidden-guidance indicator, three options
Three candidate affordances that tell a user guidance exists but is hidden, each mocked on the same surface fragment: a colorful border highlight, a quiet badge, and a collapsed strip. All three are proposals; the pick is the PM's.
Back to the lab root. Companion material: the reviewed GRI Catalog Admin wireframe set, whose table-answer entry page (05) is the surface this exhibit reuses.
How to read these pages
Same conventions as the reviewed GRI wireframe sets. Anything in plain product styling is proposed UI. Anything amber-tinted with a dashed border is review scaffolding and would never ship:
Annotation · not proposed UIBlocks like this one carry the spec citation behind a drawn behavior and the open questions for you. Notes to the reviewer, not screen copy.
Demo helperBlocks tagged this way are navigation aids and stand-ins: the dark bar at the top, cross-page links, the state labels over the two drawings, and the half-scale framing itself.
The tenant is Bluefin Foods Group, the same fictional multi-entity food producer the reviewed sets use. Every organization, person, count, date, and identifier is invented. Guidance wording on these pages is composed placeholder copy; review the surfaces and the collapse boundary, not the sentences.
What is and is not decided here
- Decided here (yours): whether the D-g-4 functional-by-fiat classification looks right on a real surface, and which hidden-guidance indicator the compact density uses.
- Not decided here: the reveal interaction itself (how collapsed guidance opens: click, hover, expand-in-place). That is a separate decided-once decision the guidance spec routes to its own UX round (explain-layer item 5). Page 02 lets you click the indicators to feel the idea, but the click behavior is a demo helper, not the proposal.
- Not in I1 either way: the density toggle ships after I1; I1 only lays the bones so the toggle is cheap later (explain-layer item 1). Nothing on these pages is I1 build scope beyond those bones.