I have part of a website that is a data collection application. The user needs to answer yes/no questions based upon input documents. For many of the questions, if the user answers 'yes', there is a follow-on question.

My question is what is the best way to handle this. Seems that I have 3 options:

1. Leave out the 'optional' questions when the user loads the page. Then, for each 'yes' answer, refresh the page with the optional question added. (Personally, I find it annoying when pages do this.)

2. Have the optional questions included, but grayed out until the 'yes' is entered. (This spaces out the mandatory questions, potentially confusing).

3. Ask each 'yes/no' question on a separate screen, then include the appropriate extra questions as they progress through. (I think this is cumbersome for a data entry application, especially if they want to go back and change answers.)

I'd appreciate input and/or examples of well-designed applications.

You can also do something to hide or show the optional questions using dhtml. I'm thinking some javascript to modify the css display property. I think if you alternate between display: none and display: block you won't be spacing out the questions when the optional questions aren't being shown.