Mastering HideSettingsPages: Best Practices & ExamplesIn modern applications—whether web, desktop, or mobile—settings pages often accumulate over time. Some sections are only relevant to admins, advanced users, or feature-flagged functionality. The ability to hide settings pages dynamically improves user experience by reducing clutter, preventing confusion, and minimizing the risk of users changing settings they shouldn’t. This article covers best practices, actionable examples, and implementation patterns for a feature commonly called “HideSettingsPages.”
Why hide settings pages?
- Reduce cognitive overload. Fewer visible options make the interface easier to navigate.
- Prevent accidental changes. Hiding advanced or dangerous settings reduces user error.
- Tailor the experience. Show only what’s relevant to a user’s role, subscription tier, or platform.
- Support feature rollout. Hide settings tied to experimental features until they’re stable.
Key design principles
- Clarity over cleverness
- Use clear labels and predictable locations for settings. Hiding should not break discoverability for users who need the options.
- Progressive disclosure
- Start with basic settings visible; allow users to reveal advanced options when necessary.
- Role- and context-aware visibility
- Visibility rules should be based on roles, permissions, license tier, feature flags, or platform capabilities.
- Non-destructive hiding
- Hiding should not delete or reset setting values unless explicitly requested by the user.
- Auditability and transparency
- Administrators should be able to see which pages are hidden and why. Provide logs or an admin view.
Common visibility criteria
- User role or permission level (admin, editor, viewer)
- Account subscription tier (free, pro, enterprise)
- Feature flags or A/B test buckets
- Device or platform (mobile vs desktop)
- Regional or legal restrictions
- Time-based rollouts (beta period)
Implementation patterns
Below are patterns applicable across architectures and frameworks.
- Configuration-driven hiding
- Centralize visibility rules in a configuration file or service. This allows non-developers (product managers, ops) to toggle visibility safely.
- Feature-flag driven visibility
- Connect visibility to a feature flag system (e.g., LaunchDarkly, Flagsmith). Combine flags with targeting rules to expose pages to subsets of users.
- Role-based access control (RBAC)
- Use existing RBAC systems to gate entire settings pages by permission checks both in the UI and on the server.
- Lazy-loading and code-splitting
- For web apps, hide routes and lazily load settings modules only when visible to reduce bundle size.
- Server-enforced visibility
- The server should verify visibility rules for any API that reads or writes settings to prevent unauthorized access via direct API calls.
- UI affordances for advanced options
- Use toggles like “Show advanced settings” or a separate “Advanced” tab to keep the main interface clean.
Example: React + feature flags
Below is a concise example pattern (conceptual) showing how to hide pages with feature flags and role checks.
- Check visibility on the client for rendering menu items and routes.
- Enforce the same checks on the server for any settings API endpoints.
// Example: SettingsNav.jsx import React from 'react'; import { useFeatureFlag } from './featureFlags'; import { useUser } from './auth'; export default function SettingsNav() { const user = useUser(); const isAdvancedVisible = useFeatureFlag('show_advanced_settings'); return ( <nav> <a href="/settings/profile">Profile</a> {user.role === 'admin' && <a href="/settings/admin">Admin</a>} {isAdvancedVisible && <a href="/settings/advanced">Advanced</a>} </nav> ); } Server-side, validate permissions:
// Example: settingsController.js (Express) app.get('/api/settings/advanced', authMiddleware, (req, res) => { if (!featureFlagService.isOnForUser('show_advanced_settings', req.user)) { return res.status(404).send({ error: 'Not found' }); } if (!req.user.hasRole('admin')) { return res.status(403).send({ error: 'Forbidden' }); } res.send(getAdvancedSettings(req.user)); }); Example: WordPress plugin pattern
For CMS platforms like WordPress, hide admin pages using capability checks and hooks.
- Use add_menu_page() conditionally during admin_menu hook based on current_user_can() or custom capability.
- Consider keeping a settings link available via search or admin-facing toggle to maintain discoverability.
Security considerations
- Never rely solely on client-side hiding. Always enforce permissions server-side.
- Hidden settings should still be validated and sanitized if accessible via API.
- Avoid security by obscurity: hiding a page is UX-focused, not an access-control mechanism.
Testing visibility rules
- Unit tests: verify functions that decide visibility for various user roles and flags.
- Integration tests: simulate user flows to ensure hidden pages are not reachable and visible pages behave correctly.
- Manual audits: have QA or admins review visibility rules after releases.
- Canary/Feature-flag testing: roll out visibility changes gradually and monitor telemetry.
Migration and backward compatibility
- When removing or permanently hiding settings, provide a migration path: export old values, map them to new equivalents, or preserve them in storage until deprecated.
- Communicate changes to administrators and provide a time window before full removal.
UX patterns and microcopy
- For hidden advanced features, include a small link or help text: “Advanced settings are hidden — enable them in your profile.”
- Use contextual help explaining why an item is hidden (e.g., “Available in Pro plan”).
- Avoid error messages that reveal internal logic; prefer neutral messages like “This option is not available for your account.”
Metrics to track
- Clicks on “Show advanced” toggles or hidden-reveal mechanisms
- Number of users who access hidden pages after rollout
- Support tickets referencing missing settings
- Conversion impact if hiding ties to subscription tiers
Example scenarios
- SaaS product: hide enterprise-only integrations from free users; use feature flags tied to billing.
- Mobile app: hide device-specific settings on platforms that don’t support the feature.
- Internal tool: hide admin-only pages from regular employees; provide an admin audit view.
- CMS plugin: conditionally add admin submenus when capabilities are present.
Summary
Hiding settings pages is a practical way to simplify interfaces, protect users, and manage feature rollouts. Do it with clear rules, server-side enforcement, careful UX, and proper testing. Centralize visibility logic, favor progressive disclosure, and ensure administrators have transparency into what’s hidden and why.
If you want, I can: provide code snippets for a specific framework (Angular, Vue, Django, Rails), draft microcopy for hidden states, or design a visibility rules schema.
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