iPhone, description of values on a summary screen are long, need to provide a few words and a sort of popup with the full description?

Question

The first screen in my app will show a summary of the values held / derived in my app. The descriptions for each value are going to be quite long. I don't want the screen to be cluttered with lots of text and a few values.

I need to shorten my description to a few words, but make it obvious that the user can press the description to reveal the full description.

How do I do that and what controls should I use ?

Answer 1

There are a few options. Let's examine the following:

• The Carat (">") always implies more information on an item
• Using ellipsis is also a clear indication that the information shown is partial
• The "show more" is standard, but usually means showing more items.
  Perhaps with adding the "info" suffix, it would be clear that pressing show more would actually expand each and every row to show more info.

Of course you could also create custom controls that would allow showing the extra info on the same screen. Perhaps something like: