Reading a crowd of agents
Goal hierarchy
A goal hierarchy shows top-level goals and their progress by default, with progressive disclosure, keeps subgoals collapsed, and hides individual task steps until a goal fails.
Control sits with both parties
When to use it
Any multi-agent run, and any task long enough that a step-level view would be unreadable.
What it prevents
Cognitive overload, which is a common way for a transparency feature to make oversight worse.
Progressgoals, not steps
Every supplier reconciledOn track
Exceptions explainedSlow
Report draftedNot started
41 steps sit under these three, collapsed until one of them fails.
Where it is used
- OrchVis: designed on the observation that people look at outcomes first, and inspect the process only when an outcome looks wrong
Sources
Related patterns: Altitude control · Conflict surfacing
Worked through as a deck: Reading a crowd of agents