Add to Edit or editing first time

Question

About CRUD operations in some "Activity Form" that can be associeted with complementary itens (Users, Archives, Comments, Tags, Financials costs).

Ie:

My first activity can have: 3 files, 10 comments, 5 users associeted and 2 tags.

What is the best option?

Option 1

• User clicks Create Activity
• User fill some basic infos
• User save (Database register created)
• User clicks Edit
• Now user can use complementar information (user association, comments, tags, financial)

Option 2

• User clicks Create Activity (Database register created)
• User can fill all information
• User clicks Save
• Problem: new activity without data can be stored in DB if user don't fill anything. Perhaps we need to clean those registers

Do you already have these doubts?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Show everything right away. You shouldn't hide new functions behind an edit. Editing implies you already finished the process, but want to alter a few minor things. So, if you edit an activity, all the options available were there when you created it. Hence, the editing aspect.

Hiding available functions behind an edit is kind of counter-intuitive. Users would have to discover these features by accident, because there's no reason to expect new things here.

Now, if you have dependencies or it becomes too complex, there are ways to get around this. You can do something like adding things to an existing profile/activity/anything. You'd place all your components of the activity on a higher level, but it's very clear that there are multiple interactions possible.

Invision is an example of that. When you make a new prototype, you only get basic options of sizing and name. The enrichment of the prototype happens after by adding loose components, like comments, users that can view it, and so on. I think this is the angle you're looking for.

Here's how that looks: creating an activity (or prototype in this case). Very basic information is asked.

And then here you have the option to add involved users, pages etc.