This pattern improves productivity by focusing a user's attention solely on the current object of interest, and uses collapsible objects to show or hide detail as needed. The intent is that collapsible objects reduce noise, clutter, and cognitive overload by hiding extraneous detail — and an easy means to view detail when needed.

Use when a user's primary task is to create or configure a parent resource, but creating, updating, or removing child objects is a sub-task. This pattern provides users easy control over displaying detail as needed.

The following illustrates the elements composing a child object in its collapsed and expanded states. View the examples to see how child objects behave and are presented in a form context.

Use cases where child objects are not required by the parent may use a semantically correct heading, optional description, and a secondary button labelled with an add action to the form.

For convenience, use cases where a parent can not be created without associating at least one child (e.g. creating a cluster) may present the first child object in its expanded state.

When multiple children are associated with the parent, consider including a "Remove all" button to allow a user the ability to easily remove all associations with a single action.