List Builder: Application access with multiple feature selection pattern

Question

In the list above, the user selects the "Application". Based on the selected application, a "Features and Feature Stage" list is being displayed. This feature list may vary per application. Initially the requirement was that a user can select one application at a time.

However, the new requirement is that we must allow a user to select multiple applications. To solve this, my application list should be a checkbox instead of a radio button. This way the user can select multiple applications, but the application feature list changes.

Please suggest me how I can differentiate for which application certain features are selected in the feature list?

Answer 1

One way of tackling that problem, would be by linking it together with colours; meaning that for instance, blue checkboxes on the right would have a blue selected checkbox on the left. However, as this would prove troublesome for colour blind people, I'd recommend a different approach.

For instance, most software installers, like the office installer, solves the same problem, by displaying a tree-view list with applications and its features.

This would give a very clear and clean overview of what is possible. If you have a very big list of applications, you could ofcourse always see if it's practical to show a summary of what has been selected at the right hand side of the screen or as a separate step even (as to lower cognitive load).

[EDIT] Following up on what I said below, regarding the further usage of radiobuttons if the feature would require a limited choice in subsettings. Or in case the list of choices is too big, for instance a list of languages, one could opt for a combobox.

There is a real life example of this, as it is implemented like this in the kernel config ( Although there they don't use a combobox ).