Inactive GUI Controls: Show, Disable, or Hide?

Summary: Three design patterns exist for inactive UI commands: showing them as normal commands with an error message if clicked, a visibly disabled state, or completely hiding unavailable options. Best practice is to display disabled features in muted colors, accompanied by explanations of why they are currently unavailable.

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Behold the epic saga of the disabled button: Sometimes, a command or feature is inactive, meaning it cannot be used at present due to the current system state or missing prerequisites. There are three design patterns for representing an inactive command in a graphical user interface:

• Active appearance: Present the control normally (as if it is enabled) and let the user click it, then show an error message explaining that the action isn’t available and why.

• Visibly disabled state: Display the control in a visually distinct “disabled” style (traditionally grayed-out or a muted version of the normal button color) to indicate it cannot be used. The control typically does nothing if the user tries to interact, except for showing an explanation of why it’s inactive and how to disable it. Supplement the control with a tooltip or a visible link for more information.

• Hidden control: Remove or hide the control entirely when the feature is not available, so the user doesn’t see it at all in the current context.

Three different design patterns fight it out for the preferred method of representing inactive features in a GUI. (Seedream 4)

Which option has superior usability? This would seem an easy question, but it’s not.

The “Wisdom” of the Designer Crowd

My interest in inactive controls was piqued by a recent posting by Evgeny Bondkowski, who recommended showing them in a desaturated version of the primary color used for active controls.

Bondkowski’s post generated substantial discussion, with roughly 2/3 of respondents disagreeing with his recommendation.

The largest camp argued against disabled states altogether. 60% of respondents preferred an always‑clickable primary action with clear, immediate feedback: highlight the missing requirement, explain why the action can’t proceed, and let the user recover in one step. Several people framed disabled buttons as a dead end that blocks learning and slows the task, with special frustration in forms where users can’t tell what’s missing.

8% preferred to completely hide inactive controls under the principle that you shouldn’t clutter up the UI with things people can’t use.

Only 32% agreed with the recommendation to show a disabled button to signal the available action and set expectations, especially for core, in-flow actions. Within this group, more commenters preferred a muted version of the primary than a flat gray, citing hierarchy and fewer misclicks. A minority favored gray for system-wide consistency (“gray = disabled” everywhere).

The social-media crowd shouted the loudest in favor of making unavailable commands look and feel the same as active commands, so that they are always clickable, even at the cost of leading the user astray into an avoidable error situation. (Seedream 4)

Based on this count of comments, the solution seems clear: give inactive commands the same visual treatment in the UI as any other command, but give an explanatory error message if the user tries to use them. (Hopefully following the usability guidelines for error message design.)

However, a closer reading of the thread gave me pause. While most commenters gave reasonable arguments, often citing plausible UX principles, none stated that their position was based on empirical observation. They did not provide evidence that users performed better with their preferred solution or struggled more with the alternatives.

In contrast, Bondkowski explicitly stated that his team had run usability tests with alternative designs and that “users performed significantly better with the muted primary-color buttons.”

In actual user testing, buttons with muted colors won the day as having the best usability for presenting unavailable commands. I prefer following lab data rather than the people who should the loudest on social media. (Seedream 4)

Even though, in theory, theory and practice should align, in practice, they sometimes differ. I have a strong bias in favor of following design recommendations that are based on usability testing and observations of real user behavior.

Thus, I prefer the design pattern with a disabled state, but showing it with a muted version of the primary color instead of the old “grayed-out” approach. This is particularly true because gray is the muted version of the only color (black) available to show buttons and commands in the early monochrome Macintosh user interface, which set the original standard of graying out inactive commands.

Data about real user behavior, even if anecdotal, should guide design decisions and are worth digging for, even if superficial social-media opinions are faster to come by. (Seedream 4)

The Deep Research Analysis

I wanted to explore this usability question more thoroughly than basing my recommendation on a single LinkedIn post, so I turned to Deep Research, and ran the question through both GPT 5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Pro. I recommend triangulating the advice of multiple AI models if you can afford it.

When you have a design dilemma, you can usually get a good overview of the available usability research by posing the question to Deep Research, especially if you guide it with a thorough description of your problem.

Here is the prompt I used. Feel free to modify for your own secondary research purposes:

Research and describe the usability implications of different ways of handling unavailable or inactive buttons, commands, and other features in a graphical user interface. These disabled features are those that are sometimes available for the user to use, but are not currently available due to some system state or other reason. There are at least three different ways of handling disabled features: (1) Show a disabled feature as normal (that is, with the same visual appearance in the UI as active commands that are available for use), but if the user clicks one, give an error message that states that the option is currently not available and explain why. (2) Show such disabled features with a distinct visual style, either as gray or a muted version of the color normally used for an active command. (3) Hide disabled features so that they are not visible at all in the UI. There might be a fourth option, in which case, describe it and include it in your usability analysis. Please find and describe available usability findings for all these ways of representing disabled commands in a UI, and furthermore analyze the two suboptions of the second approach separately (gray versus muted color). In your analysis, clearly differentiate between, on the one hand, sources that base their conclusions on empirical observations of actual user behavior and, on the other hand, sources that are purely the author's personal opinion about what is best. You can include both actual research results, whether academic or from user research studies conducted as part of a product UX design project, as well as anecdotal and informal results, but please clearly state whether the anecdote is based on the author's personal experience or opinion or is based on observing the behavior of other people. You can also include both quantitative and qualitative results. Finally, analyze the available user observations relative to user profiles and tasks or domains to investigate whether the design recommendations for this problem can be a single set of usability guidelines across all scenarios or whether there are different guidelines that are more appropriate for different scenarios. Conclude by counting how many sources recommend each option, with separate counts for opinion-based sources and user-observation-based sources, and then provide an actionable list of design guidelines that will maximize usability according to the majority view.

ChatGPT consulted 26 sources and produced a lengthy report of 13,235 words. Gemini identified even more relevant sources (52) but summarized them somewhat more briefly in a 3,881-word report. Most of GPT’s sources were also used by Gemini; therefore, the combined Deep Research was based on approximately 60 sources.

Unfortunately, the conclusion is that there is no credible empirical evidence on the Internet to illuminate this design question. ChatGPT claimed to have found substantial user data, but when clicking through to read the original sources, they inevitably used phrases like “users will do X,” without any indication that the author had actually observed people doing X.

Unfortunately, two different Deep Research runs both discovered a void without definitive empirical user data to settle the question of which design pattern has optimal usability for representing inactive features and commands.

I believe some of the authors have actually based their recommendations on user studies, whether from their own observations or reports from user research conducted by others on their teams. However, when authors don’t specify this, we can’t reliably tell whether their writings are based on empirical observations or solely on theory.

I am much in favor of usability theory, having produced plenty in my day, but as I said, specific user observations still rule, especially with it comes to very detailed design questions such as the color of inactive commands, which can rarely be derived from first principles in a straightforward manner, which is why there is disagreement.

(As an aside, as a meta-recommendation, I advise you to state explicitly in any of your usability writings when you base your recommendations on direct observation of user behavior, even if the details of the study are confidential and can’t be disclosed.)

Since we’re left with arguing based on UX principles, let’s go through each of the three design patterns and see what we can learn.

Option 1: Show Inactive Commands as Active Commands with an Error if Clicked

In this design pattern, we leave the control enabled (normal appearance) and only inform the user of its unavailability after they attempt to use it. In practice, this means the button or command looks clickable, and if the user clicks, the system intercepts the action with an error message or prompt explaining why the action can’t proceed. This approach aims to maintain discoverability (the user sees the option) and provide contextual feedback at the moment of interaction.

The first option is to show inactive commands the same way as active commands. Users will often click these buttons, since they do look active, and this will result in an error message that hopefully can serve as a teachable moment and explain to the user why the feature is unavailable. Even so, you won’t feel like an invincible superhero when you repeatedly click buttons only to be rejected by the computer. (Seedream 4)

This approach maximizes feature discoverability and availability. Users always see the option and can attempt it. They don’t have to wonder if a feature exists: they can try it and get an immediate explanation if it’s not available. For novice users or in scenarios where the requirements for enabling an action are not obvious, this can be helpful. It also turns a potentially baffling disabled state into a moment of instruction: users learn why the action is unavailable and what they can do (if anything) to enable it. For example, an active-looking “Print” button that, when pressed, pops up, “Printing is unavailable because no printer is connected,” teaches the user about the missing prerequisite. This can be less frustrating than a perpetually disabled, gray “Print” button with no feedback at all.

Another benefit is simplified error handling. Relying solely on inline disabling can be brittle if any condition is misdetected; the button might remain disabled incorrectly. Allowing the action attempt shifts the complexity to error messaging, which is often a more forgiving path (since the user can always recover by addressing the error). In practice, robust form designs often prefer this: enable the primary action and show errors as needed, rather than trying to preempt every possible error state with disabled controls. This approach is particularly strong in complex or lengthy forms. Rather than forcing users to scan the entire form to locate fields that are flagged as incomplete (a high cognitive load task), allowing them to click 'Submit' and then immediately explaining what’s missing while highlighting the offending field(s) provides a faster, clearer feedback loop localized to the errors. In this scenario, the error message is not a jarring interruption but a helpful guide to task completion.

The primary drawback is the surprise or frustration when the user clicks something that looks available, only to be told, “No, you can’t do that now.” If the user expected the action to succeed, encountering an error dialog can be jarring. This design violates a fundamental GUI convention: a control that appears enabled should perform its advertised function. If it instead throws an error, some users might interpret that as a failure of the system rather than an expected outcome. In other words, users assume that if an action is going to inevitably fail, the interface should not have let them try it. From this perspective, showing an enabled control for a known-unavailable action is misleading. Experienced users may find it inefficient: they would prefer to be prevented from taking invalid actions in the first place, rather than taking an action only to be told after the fact that it was pointless.

It is extremely frustrating to click an active-looking button only to be given an error message. (Seedream 4)

There is also a learnability consideration: if users have internalized that gray/muted means “disabled”, then a design that doesn’t mute an unavailable option might initially confuse them. However, any confusion is usually short-lived once the error message explains the situation. The bigger risk is annoyance: the user had to perform a click (or tap) that ultimately did not accomplish their goal, essentially a wasted step. If this happens frequently, it degrades the user experience. Thus, this approach should be used when it’s important for the user to attempt the action (to understand what’s needed) or when disabling would pose a significant risk of silent failure (as in the form validation examples). If overused, though, it can make an interface feel error-prone or interruptive.

Option 2: Visibly Disabled State (Grayed Out or Muted Controls)

The most classic approach to unavailable features is to display them in a disabled visual state. In GUIs, this often means “graying out” the control: rendering its label in a lighter gray and removing any highlight or color that indicates interactivity. The disabled control is inert, acting only as a visual indicator: clicking it will not activate the command, though doing so should generate an informative message about why the feature is unavailable. Variations on this include using a muted or desaturated version of the normal color scheme (e.g. a faded blue instead of bright blue) or reducing opacity to make the control look “faded.” The key is that the control is visibly different from active ones, signaling to the user that it’s not currently actionable.

When users encounter a disabled (greyed-out) control, they generally interpret it correctly: something is available in principle but “not right now.” This leverages users’ existing knowledge of GUI conventions: since the first Macintosh in 1984, gray has meant disabled in computing interfaces.

Users with moderate experience will typically not waste time clicking a clearly disabled button. Instead, they may pause and try to deduce why it’s disabled. This deduction process, however, is a known pain point. For example, if a form’s “Continue” button is dimmed out, users who believed they were done suddenly have to figure out what’s missing. Users may have to hunt through the interface for clues. They might scan for highlighted fields, error messages, or any hint of an unmet requirement. This guesswork can be time-consuming and frustrating.

A disabled control by itself fails to communicate why it’s inactive. Users know “I can’t do this now,” but not the reason. Unless the cause is obvious (like a disabled “Previous page” button on page 1), users must infer it from context. This guesswork is frustrating; if a ‘Submit’ button is disabled due to a required field off-screen, users may think the site is broken. Therefore, a disabled control must not be a communication dead end. Providing context or explanation greatly improves usability. Use a tooltip on hover or an informational icon nearby, for instance, a tooltip stating, “Save disabled: No changes made.” On touch interfaces without hover, use a popover that appears when the user taps the disabled button, explaining the requirement.

How do you get through this wall to your destination when the “Enter” button is disabled? The UI should supplement disabled features with information on how to enable them, preferably by combining a short, visible hint with more extensive user assistance when the inactive control is clicked or hovered over. (Seedream 4)

Disabled controls work best when the user can easily tell what to do to enable them. If the user perceives it as “I might be able to use this if I do something”, they remain in control and not frustrated. If instead they have no idea how to enable it, it’s just as bad as a hidden feature. For example, a grayed “Delete” button might become enabled only when an item is selected. The interface can assist by perhaps showing a hint, “Select an item to delete.” If nothing else, the disabled “Delete” is hopefully next to an active “Select All” or the list itself, so users often deduce the relationship. In contrast, if a user cannot enable that button (perhaps due to lacking permissions or it being a premium feature they haven’t paid for), seeing it disabled without explanation will just waste their mental effort. In those cases, hiding or a different approach may be warranted (discussed in the next section).

Disabled buttons can serve as a treasure map leading users to discover useful features even if they are currently unavailable. This is better than burying these treasures without a trace. (Seedream 4)

In addition to such brief pre-click advice, the UI should give users a longer, explanatory message if they do click a disabled control, with a link to an even more elaborate help page if available. (Yes, I usually say that “help doesn’t,” but help pages can still be useful in cases where users actively seek out information about how to accomplish a specific goal that’s currently inactive.)

Disabled controls have important usability benefits when used appropriately. A major advantage is feature discoverability and consistency. A disabled menu item or button serves as a placeholder, showing the user that the feature exists in the system even if it’s not usable in the current context. This is particularly valuable in feature-rich applications or professional software. Users can browse menus and see all options (some grayed out), which teaches them the capabilities of the software.

Disabled buttons set expectations for users (that the command is not presently active) while guiding them to safe shores as long as the UI explains how to activate the command. (Seedream 4)

Imagine a graphics editor where the “3D Rotate” tool is grayed out until a 3D layer is selected. By seeing it in the menu, the user learns the feature is available (perhaps prompting them to ask “How do I enable that?”) rather than never knowing it was there. Hiding important features hurts discoverability, whereas disabling them at least leaves “knowledge in the world” for the user to recognize.

For example, early versions of Microsoft Office attempted to hide infrequently used menu items, which meant that many people didn’t discover these features and assumed the software lacked them. Microsoft received significant negative feedback about this, and subsequent versions (Office 2003 onward) abandoned that approach in favor of always showing all menu items (using disabled states for unavailable ones). This real-world experiment demonstrated that users prefer seeing a gray, disabled option (even if they cannot use it immediately) over not seeing the option at all. With Microsoft’s adaptive menus, users would waste time searching for a function that had “disappeared,” often concluding incorrectly that the function did not exist. In contrast, a disabled (but visible) control gives a clear sign: “the function is here, but currently out of reach,” which at least anchors the user’s expectations.

When you can see that certain features exist but are currently unavailable, the discoverability of those features is enhanced, especially if the UI explains how to enable the disabled features. (Seedream 4)

Another benefit is maintaining interface layout and predictability. When controls are disabled instead of removed, the UI stays stable. Users appreciate it when a button they use frequently is always in the same place. Disabled states allow the control to remain in place without causing layout shifts or reflow. This is especially helpful for interfaces that users learn by position (muscle memory). Additionally, keeping controls visible is useful for user training and documentation: screenshots in help files, for example, can show the full interface with all options (some grayed out) rather than confusing users with missing elements.

Gray vs. Muted Color

The traditional method is a flat gray tone for both the icon/text and background, making it low-contrast and “ghostlike.” An alternative in newer design systems is to use a muted version of the normal color rather than pure gray. For example, if a normal button is bright green, the disabled state might be a pale green or the green at 40% opacity. This ensures the control still echoes its identity (the user can tell it’s the same green button, just faded). Is there a usability difference between these styles? There isn’t extensive formal research isolating this variable, but designers have empirically observed some patterns:

A purely gray disabled control is highly recognizable as disabled due to convention. Many users immediately interpret gray = inactive. On the other hand, gray may stand out in the UI in unintended ways. If the rest of the interface is colorful, a gray element can actually draw the eye (it looks like a prominent but unavailable item). In contrast, a translucent (faded) colored button tends to blend into the background a bit more, drawing less attention.

Using gray to signify “unavailable” is a 42-year-old legacy of GUI design, dating back to the original Macintosh, and even its predecessor, the Apple Lisa. Gray may not be exciting, but it’s a known convention, especially for desktop operating systems and applications. (Seedream 4)

Gray is also often used for secondary actions (e.g. cancel buttons or less important options are styled in gray to deemphasize them). This uncertainty can lead people to try tapping it in vain.

Using a muted version of the actual color can mitigate the above issues by preserving recognition. The control in its disabled state resembles its enabled state (just faded). Then when it becomes enabled, the change is subtle and expected, not a drastic jump from gray to bright. This continuity can set better expectations: that the faded blue button will likely turn solid blue when available, as opposed to a gray button, which could be mistaken as a permanently different element.

However, there are accessibility implications to consider. A muted color disabled state often has very low contrast (by design, to look inactive), which can be problematic for low-vision users. A higher-contrast faded color might be more legible while still conveying inactivity.

Consistency with the platform is important. Users get used to the native style of disabled controls on their platform: on Windows and web, gray text is common; on iOS, disabled controls are often a dimmed version of the normal text (e.g., light blue text turns light gray-blue). The difference is subtle, and most users won’t articulate it, but they will notice if something feels off.

Option 3: Hiding Unavailable Features

The third approach is to hide the feature entirely when it’s not available. In this case, the control (button, menu item, etc.) does not appear in the UI at all until the conditions for it are met. Hiding can be either temporary (the item appears dynamically when appropriate) or permanent for certain user roles (e.g., features a user doesn’t have access to are never shown).

The primary advantage of hiding is reduced clutter and cognitive load. Users are not distracted by controls that they can’t use or that don’t apply to them. This can streamline workflows, especially for novice users or in very constrained task scenarios. By removing irrelevant options, you allow users to focus only on the actions they can take, which can make interfaces appear simpler and more approachable.

Hiding has a few advantages: you don’t get caught by the cops, and the user experience is streamlined, as long as the user doesn’t go looking for anything that has been hidden. (Seedream 4)

In mobile apps with limited screen space, hiding inactive features is often necessary to avoid overwhelming the user with buttons and icons.

Hiding is recommended in cases where the user will never be able to use that feature due to their role or license. From a user’s perspective, showing a control they can never access is pointless and frustrating. For example, consider a user with a basic account on a service that has premium features. If the UI showed all premium feature buttons constantly disabled or returning “access denied,” the user will feel teased or annoyed. Instead, many designs omit those features for basic users, perhaps mentioning them in documentation or an upgrade page. This way, the user’s day-to-day UI is cleaner. Similarly, in web apps, it’s common to hide admin controls from non-admin users for clarity.

The significant downside of hiding is discoverability. If users expect a feature and don’t see it, they may mistakenly conclude it doesn’t exist. This can lead to user frustration, especially for experienced users or returning users.

Hiding also causes context loss, where the user doubts they are in the right place because the expected UI element is missing; and wasted effort, where the user spends time searching through other screens or settings for something that was actually there but hidden. These two problems can break the user’s mental model of the system’s consistency (“sometimes it’s there, sometimes not”).

With hiding, the user might also not understand what condition would bring the feature back. At least a disabled control hints “there is something to do to unlock me.” A hidden one leaves no trace. Users may not even realize a certain action is possible. This is especially problematic for advanced features that a novice might not know about unless they stumble into the right state.

Additionally, hiding controls can cause layout shifts or inconsistencies. If an entire button or menu item appears/disappears, it can cause other UI elements to move around. This can be disorienting if it happens unexpectedly. Frequent show/hide can make an interface feel unstable (though this can be mitigated by reserving space or using placeholder labels).

Novice or casual users, who are not aware of what they might be missing, often handle hidden features fine: they simply focus on what’s visible. In fact, hiding can be beneficial for this group to prevent overwhelming them with too many options. A new user might prefer a simplified menu that grows as they delve deeper. Some software employs progressive modes (basic vs advanced), essentially hiding advanced controls until a user opts in. Such “training wheels” designs improve initial learnability, according to research by John M. Carroll and Caroline Carrithers.

Conclusion: Show Disabled Options in Muted Colors with Help Text

I asked Gemini to count the number of sources that recommend each approach:

• For the general case where a feature is sometimes active and sometimes inactive, 24% recommended option 1 of using the same visual appearance for both states and simply presenting the user with an error message if clicking an inactive command.

• An overwhelming 76% recommended option 2 of using a gray or muted color to show an inactive feature in a disabled state, supplemented by an explanation of why the feature is unavailable.

• Nobody recommended option 3 of hiding inactive features as a general approach, though several recommended hiding features that are never available to a given user based on their subscription level or other permissions.

Usability is not a democracy: we should design the solution that works best, not the one that gets the most votes. That said, in this case, the majority for option 2 is large, and I happen to find its arguments the most persuasive. (After all, my Usability Heuristic 1 is “visibility of system status,” and showing an inactive feature in a muted color is exactly one way to visualize status.)

Therefore, my recommendation is to display inactive commands, buttons, and other features as disabled, using a muted color to visually indicate this status. Be sure to clearly explain why the feature is unavailable and offer constructive suggestions on how the user can enable it. (With the twist that features that are never available to a user should be hidden.)

Retain the visibility of inactive controls but in muted colors that clearly mark them as disabled. Supplement with helpful hints and additional explanation if the user clicks the disabled control. (Seedream 4)

An alternative alliterate analysis:

Designers debated disabled design decisions. Three tactics tussled: active appearance approaches, visibly vacant variations, or hidden, hushed handles. Bondkowski’s battle-tested buttons brought bold breakthroughs: muted modes made marvelous metrics. Deep diving delivered data, sixty sources strong, seeking solid science versus vague views. The tally told truth: preponderance preferred presenting pale, passive patterns paired with plain, productive pointers. Best practice brings balance: beautifully buttered buttons, blended but blocked, beside beneficial briefings.

Short music video about this article (YouTube, 4 min.)