Wizard with optional steps
I'm currently designing a wizard dialog for saving a search. There are three steps of which the first one is required (provide a name) and the subsequent two are optional. I would like the user to be able to save (and close) the wizard at any point, as long as a name is given but it's important that the other steps don't go unnoticed. The other steps should be able to be skipped. Now I'm wondering how to get this right...
- ...so that the user does not overlook the optional steps (by just clicking 'Save' right after naming the search)
- ...without having too many buttons and preferably not requiring the user to click through all of the steps
- ...without having buttons change positions throughout the flow (to prevent mis-clicks when users assume buttons )
- ...without having the user click wrong buttons (e.g. 'skip' that turns into 'next' when an optional step is used - users often don't read label)
I'm wondering how you would deal with this. So far I couldn't really come up with a solution that ticks all boxes - mostly struggling with which buttons. This is what I currently have:
- All steps have a 'Cancel' button at the bottom-left of the dialog
- Step 1 has buttons 'Save' and 'Continue' at the bottom-right (in that sequence)
- Step 2 and 3 have 'Back', 'Next' (disabled if no information given) and 'Skip' (always enabled)
- Step 4 provides a summary of all the given information with buttons 'Back' and 'Save'.
i.e. there are quite a lot of possibilities to click on, and the 'Save' button on step 4 is ordered differently from step 1. Any better ideas?