Accordions
Accordions Are Not Always the Answer for Complex Content on Desktops
Summary: Longer pages can benefit users. Accordions shorten pages and reduce scrolling, but they increase the interaction cost by requiring people to decide on topic headings. See Nielsen Norman Group article.
Accordions may seem to be a good solution for shortening long content pages. However, in many situations when all the page content is relevant to users, it is more advantageous to show all the content at once, even if doing so results in longer pages. On the desktop it is easier to simply scroll the page than to decide on which topics to click on. Our usability studies and eyetracking research show that people scroll when information is valuable and properly formatted for scanning.
Major Usability Issues with Accordions
While accordions sound ideal for presenting complex content, like with many other widgets and implementations, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. There are major downsides to accordions.
Accordions increase interaction cost
Readers treat clicks like currency: they don’t mind spending it if the click is worthwhile and has value. However, resentment ensues when a click is considered a wasted effort; it doesn’t take many wasted clicks to escalate people’s reaction to full-blown defiance. Acquiring click targets, such as links and buttons, and waiting for content to appear requires work and wastes precious time that users don’t want to give.
Accessibility is an important consideration
Pages and widgets must be coded with accessibility in mind, which is an added development effort. In contrast, plain text is inherently accessible (though it can definitely be too complicated for disabled users to understand, but that’s a standard writing issue which you should consider in any case.)