Why Non-Native Content Designers Improve Global UX

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Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2025/07/why-non-native-content-designers-improve-global-ux/

A few years ago, I was in a design review at a fintech company, polishing the expense management flows. It was a routine session where we reviewed the logic behind content and design decisions.

While looking over the statuses for submitted expenses, I noticed a label saying ‘In approval’. I paused, re-read it again, and asked myself:

“Where is it? Are the results in? Where can I find them? Are they sending me to the app section called “Approval”?”

This tiny label made me question what was happening with my money, and this feeling of uncertainty was quite anxiety-inducing.

My team, all native English speakers, did not flinch, even for a second, and moved forward to discuss other parts of the flow. I was the only non-native speaker in the room, and while the label made perfect sense to them, it still felt off to me.

After a quick discussion, we landed on ‘Pending approval’ — the simplest and widely recognised option internationally. More importantly, this wording makes it clear that there’s an approval process, and it hasn’t taken place yet. There’s no need to go anywhere to do it.

Some might call it nitpicking, but that was exactly the moment I realised how invisible — yet powerful — the non-native speaker’s perspective can be.

In a reality where user testing budgets aren’t unlimited, designing with familiar language patterns from the start helps you prevent costly confusions in the user journey.

Those same confusions often lead to:

Higher rate of customer service queries,
Lower adoption rates,
Higher churn,
Distrust and confusion.

As A Native Speaker, You Don’t See The Whole Picture

Global products are often designed with English as their primary language. This seems logical, but here’s the catch:

Roughly 75% of English-speaking users are not native speakers, which means 3 out of every 4 users.

Native speakers often write on instinct, which works much like autopilot. This can often lead to overconfidence in content that, in reality, is too culturally specific, vague, or complex. And that content may not be understood by 3 in 4 people who read it.

If your team shares the same native language, content clarity remains assumed by default rather than proven through pressure testing.

The price for that is the accessibility of your product. A study by National Library of Medicine found that US adults who had proficiency in English but did not use it as their primary language were significantly less likely to be insured, even when provided with the same level of service as everyone else.

In other words, they did not finish the process of securing a healthcare provider — a process that’s vital to their well-being, in part, due to unclear or inaccessible communication.

If people abandon the process of getting something as vital as healthcare insurance, it’s easy to imagine them dropping out during checkout, account setup, or app onboarding.

Non-native content designers, by contrast, do not write on autopilot. Because of their experience learning English, they’re much more likely to tune into nuances, complexity, and cultural exclusions that natives often overlook. That’s the key to designing for everyone rather than 1 in 4.

Non-native Content Designers Make Your UX Global
Spotting The Clutter And Cognitive Load Issues

When a non-native speaker has to pause, re-read something, or question the meaning of what’s written, they quickly identify it as a friction point in the user experience.

Why it’s important: Every extra second users have to spend understanding your content makes them more likely to abandon the task. This is a high price that companies pay for not prioritising clarity.

Cognitive load is not just about complex sentences but also about the speed. There’s plenty of research confirming that non-native speakers read more slowly than native speakers. This is especially important when you work on the visibility of system status — time-sensitive content that the user needs to scan and understand quickly.

One example you can experience firsthand is an ATM displaying a number of updates and instructions. Even when they’re quite similar, it still overwhelms you when you realise that you missed one, not being able to finish reading.

This kind of rapid-fire updates can increase frustration and the chances of errors.

Always Advocating For Plain English

They tend to review and rewrite things more often to find the easiest way to communicate the message. What a native speaker may consider clear enough might be dense or difficult for a non-native to understand.

Why it’s important: Simple content better scales across countries, languages, and cultures.

Catching Culture-specific Assumptions And References

When things do not make sense, non-native speakers challenge them. Besides the idioms and other obvious traps, native speakers tend to fall into considering their life experience to be shared with most English-speaking users.

Cultural differences might even exist within one globally shared language. Have you tried saying ‘soccer’ instead of ‘football’ in a conversation with someone from the UK? These details may not only cause confusion but also upset people.

Why it’s important: Making sure your product is free from culture-specific references makes your product more inclusive and safeguards you from alienating your users.

They Have Another Level Of Empathy For The Global Audience

Being a non-native speaker themselves, they have experience with products that do not speak clearly to them. They’ve been in the global user’s shoes and know how it impacts the experience.

Why it’s important: Empathy is a key driver towards design decisions that take into account the diverse cultural and linguistic background of the users.

How Non-native Content Design Can Shape Your Approach To Design

Your product won’t become better overnight simply because you read an inspiring article telling you that you need to have a more diverse team. I get it. So here are concrete changes that you can make in your design workflows and hiring routines to make sure your content is accessible globally.

Run Copy Reviews With Non-native Readers

When you launch a new feature or product, it’s a standard practice to run QA sessions to review visuals and interactions. When your team does not include the non-native perspective, the content is usually overlooked and considered fine as long as it’s grammatically correct.

I know, having a dedicated localisation team to pressure-test your content for clarity is a privilege, but you can always start small.

At one of my previous companies, we established a ‘clarity heroes council’ — a small team of non-native English speakers with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. During our reviews, they often asked questions that surprised us and highlighted where clarity was missing:

What’s a “grace period”?
What will happen when I tap “settle the payment”?

These questions flag potential problems and help you save both money and reputation by avoiding thousands of customer service tickets.

Review Existing Flows For Clarity

Even if your product does not have major releases regularly, it accumulates small changes over time. They’re often plugged in as fixes or small improvements, and can be easily overlooked from a QA perspective.

A good start will be a regular look at the flows that are critical to your business metrics: onboarding, checkout, and so on. Fence off some time for your team quarterly or even annually, depending on your product size, to come together and check whether your key content pieces serve the global audience well.

Usually, a proper review is conducted by a team: a product designer, a content designer, an engineer, a product manager, and a researcher. The idea is to go over the flows, research insights, and customer feedback together. For that, having a non-native speaker on the audit task force will be essential.

If you’ve never done an audit before, try this template as it covers everything you need to start.

Make Sure Your Content Guidelines Are Global-ready

If you haven’t done it already, make sure your voice & tone documentation includes details about the level of English your company is catering to.

This might mean working with the brand team to find ways to make sure your brand voice comes through to all users without sacrificing clarity and comprehension. Use examples and showcase the difference between sounding smart or playful vs sounding clear.

Leaning too much towards brand personality is where cultural differences usually shine through. As a user, you might’ve seen it many times. Here’s a banking app that wanted to seem relaxed and relatable by introducing ‘Dang it’ as the only call-to-action on the screen.

However, users with different linguistic backgrounds might not be familiar with this expression. Worse, they might see it as an action, leaving them unsure of what will actually happen after tapping it.

Considering how much content is generated with AI today, your guidelines have to account for both tone and clarity. This way, when you feed these requirements to the AI, you’ll see the output that will not just be grammatically correct but also easy to understand.

Incorporate Global English Heuristics Into Your Definition Of Success

Basic heuristic principles are often documented as a part of overarching guidelines to help UX teams do a better job. The Nielsen Norman Group usability heuristics cover the essential ones, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t introduce your own. To complement this list, add this principle:

Aim for global understanding: Content and design should communicate clearly to any user regardless of cultural or language background.

You can suggest criteria to ensure it’s clear how to evaluate this:

Action transparency: Is it clear what happens next when the user proceeds to the next screen or page?
Minimal ambiguity: Is the content open to multiple interpretations?
International clarity: Does this content work in a non-Western context?

Bring A Non-native Perspective To Your Research, Too

This one is often overlooked, but collaboration between the research team and non-native speaking writers is super helpful. If your research involves a survey or interview, they can help you double-check whether there is complex or ambiguous language used in the questions unintentionally.

In a study by the Journal of Usability Studies, 37% of non-native speakers did not manage to answer the question that included a word they did not recognise or could not recall the meaning of. The question was whether they found the system to be “cumbersome to use”, and the consequences of getting unreliable data and measurements on this would have a negative impact on the UX of your product.

Another study by UX Journal of User Experience highlights how important clarity is in surveys. While most people in their study interpreted the question “How do you feel about … ?” as “What’s your opinion on …?”, some took it literally and proceeded to describe their emotions instead.

This means that even familiar terms can be misinterpreted. To get precise research results, it’s worth defining key terms and concepts to ensure common understanding with participants.

Globalise Your Glossary

At Klarna, we often ran into a challenge of inconsistent translation for key terms. A well-defined English term could end up having from three to five different versions in Italian or German. Sometimes, even the same features or app sections could be referred to differently depending on the market — this led to user confusion.

To address this, we introduced a shared term base — a controlled vocabulary that included:

English term,
Definition,
Approved translations for all markets,
Approved and forbidden synonyms.

Importantly, the term selection was dictated by user research, not by assumption or personal preferences of the team.

If you’re unsure where to begin, use this product content vocabulary template for Notion. Duplicate it for free and start adding your terms.

We used a similar setup. Our new glossary was shared internally across teams, from product to customer service. Results? Reducing the support tickets related to unclear language used in UI (or directions in the user journey) by 18%. This included tasks like finding instructions on how to make a payment (especially with the least popular payment methods like bank transfer), where the late fee details are located, or whether it’s possible to postpone the payment. And yes, all of these features were available, and the team believed they were quite easy to find.

A glossary like this can live as an add-on to your guidelines. This way, you will be able to quickly get up to speed new joiners, keep product copy ready for localisation, and defend your decisions with stakeholders.

Approach Your Team Growth With An Open Mind

‘Looking for a native speaker’ still remains a part of the job listing for UX Writers and content designers. There’s no point in assuming it’s intentional discrimination. It’s just a misunderstanding that stems from not fully accepting that our job is more about building the user experience than writing texts that are grammatically correct.

Here are a few tips to make sure you hire the best talent and treat your applicants fairly:

Remove the ‘native speaker’ and ‘fluency’ requirement.

Instead, focus on the core part of our job: add ‘clear communicator’, ‘ability to simplify’, or ‘experience writing for a global audience’.

Judge the work, not the accent.

Over the years, there have been plenty of studies confirming that the accent bias is real — people having an unusual or foreign accent are considered less hirable. While some may argue that it can have an impact on the efficiency of internal communications, it’s not enough to justify the reason to overlook the good work of the applicant.

My personal experience with the accent is that it mostly depends on the situation you’re in. When I’m in a friendly environment and do not feel anxiety, my English flows much better as I do not overthink how I sound. Ironically, sometimes when I’m in a room with my team full of British native speakers, I sometimes default to my Slavic accent. The question is: does it make my content design expertise or writing any worse? Not in the slightest.

Therefore, make sure you judge the portfolios, the ideas behind the interview answers, and whiteboard challenge presentations, instead of focusing on whether the candidate’s accent implies that they might not be good writers.

Good Global Products Need Great Non-native Content Design

Non-native content designers do not have a negative impact on your team’s writing. They sharpen it by helping you look at your content through the lens of your real user base. In the globalised world, linguistic purity no longer benefits your product’s user experience.

Try these practical steps and leverage the non-native speaking lens of your content designers to design better international products.

Handling JavaScript Event Listeners With Parameters

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Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2025/07/handling-javascript-event-listeners-parameters/

JavaScript event listeners are very important, as they exist in almost every web application that requires interactivity. As common as they are, it is also essential for them to be managed properly. Improperly managed event listeners can lead to memory leaks and can sometimes cause performance issues in extreme cases.

Here’s the real problem: JavaScript event listeners are often not removed after they are added. And when they are added, they do not require parameters most of the time — except in rare cases, which makes them a little trickier to handle.

A common scenario where you may need to use parameters with event handlers is when you have a dynamic list of tasks, where each task in the list has a “Delete” button attached to an event handler that uses the task’s ID as a parameter to remove the task. In a situation like this, it is a good idea to remove the event listener once the task has been completed to ensure that the deleted element can be successfully cleaned up, a process known as garbage collection.

A Common Mistake When Adding Event Listeners

A very common mistake when adding parameters to event handlers is calling the function with its parameters inside the addEventListener() method. This is what I mean:

button.addEventListener(‘click’, myFunction(param1, param2));

The browser responds to this line by immediately calling the function, irrespective of whether or not the click event has happened. In other words, the function is invoked right away instead of being deferred, so it never fires when the click event actually occurs.

You may also receive the following console error in some cases:

This error makes sense because the second parameter of the addEventListener method can only accept a JavaScript function, an object with a handleEvent() method, or simply null. A quick and easy way to avoid this error is by changing the second parameter of the addEventListener method to an arrow or anonymous function.

button.addEventListener(‘click’, (event) => {
myFunction(event, param1, param2); // Runs on click
});

The only hiccup with using arrow and anonymous functions is that they cannot be removed with the traditional removeEventListener() method; you will have to make use of AbortController, which may be overkill for simple cases. AbortController shines when you have multiple event listeners to remove at once.

For simple cases where you have just one or two event listeners to remove, the removeEventListener() method still proves useful. However, in order to make use of it, you’ll need to store your function as a reference to the listener.

Using Parameters With Event Handlers

There are several ways to include parameters with event handlers. However, for the purpose of this demonstration, we are going to constrain our focus to the following two:

Option 1: Arrow And Anonymous Functions

Using arrow and anonymous functions is the fastest and easiest way to get the job done.

To add an event handler with parameters using arrow and anonymous functions, we’ll first need to call the function we’re going to create inside the arrow function attached to the event listener:

const button = document.querySelector(“#myButton”);

button.addEventListener(“click”, (event) => {
handleClick(event, “hello”, “world”);
});

After that, we can create the function with parameters:

function handleClick(event, param1, param2) {
console.log(param1, param2, event.type, event.target);
}

Note that with this method, removing the event listener requires the AbortController. To remove the event listener, we create a new AbortController object and then retrieve the AbortSignal object from it:

const controller = new AbortController();
const { signal } = controller;

Next, we can pass the signal from the controller as an option in the removeEventListener() method:

button.addEventListener(“click”, (event) => {
handleClick(event, “hello”, “world”);
}, { signal });

Now we can remove the event listener by calling AbortController.abort():

controller.abort()

Option 2: Closures

Closures in JavaScript are another feature that can help us with event handlers. Remember the mistake that produced a type error? That mistake can also be corrected with closures. Specifically, with closures, a function can access variables from its outer scope.

In other words, we can access the parameters we need in the event handler from the outer function:

function createHandler(message, number) {
// Event handler
return function (event) {
console.log(${message} ${number} – Clicked element:, event.target);
};
}

const button = document.querySelector(“#myButton”);
button.addEventListener(“click”, createHandler(“Hello, world!”, 1));
}

This establishes a function that returns another function. The function that is created is then called as the second parameter in the addEventListener() method so that the inner function is returned as the event handler. And with the power of closures, the parameters from the outer function will be made available for use in the inner function.

Notice how the event object is made available to the inner function. This is because the inner function is what is being attached as the event handler. The event object is passed to the function automatically because it’s the event handler.

To remove the event listener, we can use the AbortController like we did before. However, this time, let’s see how we can do that using the removeEventListener() method instead.

In order for the removeEventListener method to work, a reference to the createHandler function needs to be stored and used in the addEventListener method:

function createHandler(message, number) {
return function (event) {
console.log(${message} ${number} – Clicked element:, event.target);
};
}
const handler = createHandler(“Hello, world!”, 1);
button.addEventListener(“click”, handler);

Now, the event listener can be removed like this:

button.removeEventListener(“click”, handler);

Conclusion

It is good practice to always remove event listeners whenever they are no longer needed to prevent memory leaks. Most times, event handlers do not require parameters; however, in rare cases, they do. Using JavaScript features like closures, AbortController, and removeEventListener, handling parameters with event handlers is both possible and well-supported.

Interactive Text Destruction with Three.js, WebGPU, and TSL

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Original Source: https://tympanus.net/codrops/2025/07/22/interactive-text-destruction-with-three-js-webgpu-and-tsl/

Learn how to create an interactive 3D text effect where letters explode into dynamic shapes using Three.js, WebGPU, and Three Shader Language (TSL).

SpotOn POS Review: The Best POS System for Restaurants and Retail?

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Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/spoton-pos-review

SpotOn is a powerful, cloud-based POS (point-of-sale) system built to serve restaurants, cafes, salons, and retail stores — especially those with both in-store and online sales.

With advanced tools for inventory management, customer engagement, and online ordering, SpotOn has gained serious ground as a flexible and scalable alternative to Square, Toast, or Clover.

I’ve tested SpotOn and compared it to other POS systems.

In this review, I’ll walk through its pricing, features, and real business performance so you can decide if it’s right for your store or restaurant.

Why You Can Trust This Review

This review is based on hundreds of hours of product research, hands-on testing, and real user feedback. I’ve reviewed dozens of POS platforms and interviewed business owners who actively use SpotOn in the US.

SpotOn POS at a Glance

SpotOn POS
Best for restaurants and retail businesses that sell in-store and online
Rating: 4.6 out of 5

FeaturesSummaryIndustries ServedRestaurants, retail stores, service-based businessesHardwareAndroid-based POS terminals, handhelds, and kitchen displaysEcommerce CapabilitiesBuilt-in online ordering and product syncPrice Range (Software)$25–$195/month (based on features)Price Range (Hardware)$0–$1,200 (one-time or bundled)Payment ProcessingCustom rates (typically 1.89% + $0.10 per transaction)Support24/7 support + on-site setup in many areas

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Excellent for managing both in-person and online sales
Built-in tools for loyalty, CRM, and promotions
Offline mode for uninterrupted transactions
Real-time inventory tracking and detailed analytics
Strong customer support and onboarding

Cons 👎

No public pricing – you’ll need a quote
Interface isn’t as slick as Square or Clover
Some onboarding can be time-consuming
Not ideal for ecommerce-only businesses

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My Experience Setting Up SpotOn

When I signed up for SpotOn, I was assigned a dedicated rep who walked me through the onboarding steps. Unlike other systems, SpotOn offers in-person installation in most metro areas, which is a big help for businesses transitioning from older systems.

What the onboarding looked like:

I chose my business type (restaurant vs retail)

SpotOn pre-configured the POS with the appropriate tools

I imported my menu or product catalog

A SpotOn installer handled device setup, training, and testing

Most businesses are fully up and running within 1–2 weeks depending on their needs.

This isn’t a plug-and-play solution like Square — it’s more tailored to businesses ready to scale or upgrade from basic setups.

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Features Breakdown

SpotOn offers a wide range of features out of the box, without forcing you into a messy app ecosystem.

Sales & Checkout

Accepts all major payment types, including tap, mobile wallets, EMV, and online prepay

Tip settings, receipt options, and customer-facing displays

Offline mode: Continue selling even if WiFi drops

SpotOn’s checkout experience is fast and customizable. You can tailor the flow to match your business type — for example, quick-serve restaurants can skip certain steps to reduce order times, while retail stores can offer flexible tipping and receipt delivery via email or SMS.

The interface is clean and functional, with minimal training required for staff.

Another standout is SpotOn’s ability to handle split payments and partial refunds without jumping through hoops. Whether a customer wants to split a bill between cash and card, or needs a refund on one item in a multi-item order, the process is quick and accurate.

For businesses that process high volumes during peak hours, SpotOn’s robust hardware (like the handheld SpotOn Terminal) lets staff take orders and payments on the move — helping reduce wait times and keep lines short.

Inventory Management

Track stock in real time across multiple locations

Set reorder alerts and sync items with online menus/stores

Categorize items by tags, vendors, and product types

SpotOn’s inventory system is powerful yet user-friendly. You can create categories for items, set up modifiers (great for food service), and bulk import your existing product database.

Everything updates automatically across your POS devices and your online store, so there’s less risk of overselling or stock mismatches.

The platform also lets you track cost of goods sold (COGS), margins, and vendor data. This is particularly helpful for retail businesses managing dozens (or hundreds) of SKUs from different suppliers.

You can even generate reorder reports to restock fast-selling items.

SpotOn is also ideal for managing combos or bundles — whether you’re selling meal packages or retail gift sets. You can build custom kits with dynamic pricing and real-time inventory deduction for each item inside the bundle.

CRM & Loyalty Tools

Capture customer data at checkout (name, email, preferences)

Built-in loyalty programs that reward repeat visits automatically

Customizable offers and email marketing tools

SpotOn’s CRM capabilities let you build a database of repeat customers and track their spending behavior. This makes it easy to identify VIP customers, high-lifetime-value shoppers, or lapsed buyers who might be ready for a win-back campaign.

Loyalty programs are integrated — not bolted on. Customers can automatically earn points based on purchases, and redeem rewards via email, text, or in-person.

You can run seasonal offers, birthday rewards, or flash promotions without needing third-party software.

For email and text marketing, SpotOn includes a drag-and-drop campaign builder with list segmentation. You can trigger campaigns based on visit history, average spend, or visit frequency.

And the best part? It’s all connected to your POS, so performance tracking is seamless.

Ecommerce & Online Ordering

Branded online store or menu with item syncing

Custom checkout, delivery zones, and curbside options

Orders flow directly into your POS dashboard

SpotOn makes it easy for restaurants and retailers to launch a web presence.

The built-in online store is branded to match your business and automatically pulls in items from your POS, saving you hours of manual work.

Menu changes update in real time, which is crucial for businesses with changing inventories or daily specials.

You can define delivery zones, set curbside pickup instructions, and add tipping or promotional codes — all from one dashboard.

It’s mobile-optimized by default, meaning your customers get a clean checkout experience whether they’re browsing on desktop or phone.

Though it doesn’t offer full control like Shopify or WooCommerce, the simplicity is the point. You can start taking online orders without having to manage a separate ecommerce platform.

And for food service businesses, the integration with kitchen displays and order printers ensures nothing gets missed.

Reporting & Analytics

Daily sales summaries and shift reports

Labor and productivity tracking

Multi-location rollup reports

Export to QuickBooks or Excel

The reporting dashboard in SpotOn is one of its strongest features. It delivers actionable insights right from your homepage — including best-selling items, top employees by sales, busiest times of day, and overall store performance.

You can drill down by day, week, or month.

Labor tracking shows how each team member performs across shifts, helping managers schedule smarter and recognize top earners. You can even compare locations side-by-side and spot trends or inconsistencies quickly.

Custom reports are easy to generate, and you can schedule automatic email reports to be sent daily or weekly to store managers or accountants.

If you use QuickBooks, the export integration ensures your books stay clean and reconciled without extra effort.

Table: SpotOn Feature Availability by Business Type

FeatureRestaurantRetailServiceOnline ordering✅✅❌Loyalty programs✅✅✅Appointment scheduling❌❌✅Inventory management✅✅❌Multi-location support✅✅✅

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Pricing Breakdown

SpotOn doesn’t list its pricing publicly, so I gathered quotes from businesses and sales reps to give you an accurate idea.

Plan TypeEstimated Cost (USD)Core software$25–$195/month per locationHardware bundles$0–$1,200 (one-time or lease)Payment fees1.89% + $0.10 per transaction (average)Add-onsLoyalty, marketing, KDS included in higher plans

Quick Notes on Pricing:

SpotOn can bundle hardware and software into one monthly fee

Payment processing rates improve with volume

Most plans are 12–36 months (read the fine print)

One big benefit is SpotOn’s ability to build a custom quote based on your actual needs. You’re not stuck in a cookie-cutter plan. That said, some users find the negotiation process a little tiring, especially compared to Square’s simple pricing page.

SpotOn also offers zero upfront hardware for some qualifying businesses — as long as you sign a longer-term contract. This is great if you’re short on capital but need modern gear to run your store efficiently.

While SpotOn may not be the cheapest POS on the market, it often ends up saving money over time, thanks to included tools (like loyalty and email marketing) that would otherwise cost extra through third-party platforms.

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Real Customer Feedback

What Users Love

“We cut checkout time by 20% and saw fewer errors from staff.”

“Support actually picks up the phone and sends someone to help.”

“The loyalty program boosted repeat visits by 30% in 3 months.”

SpotOn users often highlight the level of personal support they receive. Whether it’s an on-site setup, scheduled training calls, or quick issue resolution, the support team gets consistent praise across review sites like G2 and Capterra.

Another common thread in positive reviews is how centralized the system feels. Businesses don’t need separate tools for gift cards, online orders, loyalty, and email — it’s all managed in one dashboard, which saves time and reduces tech fatigue.

Multiple business owners also mentioned improvements in employee productivity and customer retention within the first few months of using SpotOn, largely thanks to detailed reporting and smarter marketing tools.

Common Complaints

“Inventory syncing with our online store took a while to get right.”

“I wish they’d just post the pricing online.”

“Interface isn’t as modern as Square, but it works well.”

Some users feel that SpotOn’s learning curve is a bit steep during onboarding — especially if migrating from another POS. Certain restaurant-specific setups (like complex menu modifiers or split checks) require more upfront configuration.

The lack of transparent pricing also frustrates some potential users, who don’t want to speak to a sales rep just to get a ballpark estimate. That said, those who do engage often find SpotOn more competitively priced than expected.

Lastly, the user interface gets mixed reviews. It’s functional and gets the job done, but it doesn’t feel quite as polished or intuitive as newer platforms like Square or Lightspeed.

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SpotOn vs Competitors

Here’s how SpotOn stacks up against major POS systems:

FeatureSpotOnSquareToastCloverBest forHybrid bizNew sellersRestaurantsRetail & QSROnline orderingIncludedAdd-onIncludedPlugin neededHardware typeAndroidiPadProprietaryAndroidLoyalty programsBuilt-inAdd-onAdd-onAdd-onTransparent pricing❌ No✅ Yes❌ No✅ YesOffline mode✅ Yes✅ Yes✅ Yes✅ Yes

While Square is ideal for solo entrepreneurs and new businesses, it can start to feel limited as you grow — especially when you need real-time inventory tracking or better CRM tools.

SpotOn, on the other hand, offers more scalability and support.

Toast is very strong in full-service restaurants but lacks the retail tools that make SpotOn a better all-in-one option for hybrid businesses.

And while Clover has decent customization, its app-based approach can feel fragmented unless you’re tech-savvy.

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Selling Online with SpotOn

If you’re a restaurant or retail store that needs to sell online, SpotOn gives you a streamlined, no-fuss solution.

The online ordering platform is integrated into your POS, so every menu or product update flows instantly to your website. This removes the need for double entry or syncing headaches — a huge time-saver.

You can choose whether you want to offer pickup, delivery, or curbside options. Delivery zones are customizable by ZIP code or distance, and pricing can be adjusted based on location or order size.

Businesses can also control lead times, so your kitchen or staff never gets overwhelmed during rush hours.

From a customer perspective, the experience is fast and frictionless. The checkout process is mobile-optimized, supports tipping, and lets customers save payment info for future orders.

You can also offer promo codes, upsell items at checkout, or let customers reorder favorites with one click. This helps increase average order value and repeat sales, especially for restaurants and cafés.

Another bonus is that SpotOn includes basic SEO controls like meta tags and clean URLs for your online store.

It’s not a full-featured ecommerce CMS, but for hybrid businesses, it covers the essentials. If online ordering is an add-on to your physical operation — not your core — SpotOn’s ecommerce features are exactly what you need.

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Security & Compliance

SpotOn follows all industry standards to protect your business, customer data, and payment information.

Every transaction is PCI DSS compliant, and sensitive information is encrypted both in transit and at rest. Whether you’re processing a mobile tap or taking a payment from a web order, it’s secured with modern encryption protocols.

One key advantage is local offline storage. If your internet goes down, SpotOn can still run transactions securely and sync them once you’re back online.

This ensures business continuity even in the middle of a Wi-Fi outage — something many cloud-only systems struggle with.

SpotOn also offers role-based user permissions, so you can control who sees what. For example, cashiers can be restricted from accessing reports, while managers can review sales and labor performance.

This helps protect against internal misuse and simplifies team management.

The platform is hosted on secure, redundant infrastructure, and SpotOn performs routine security audits to identify vulnerabilities before they become issues.

As a business owner, you can feel confident that SpotOn is handling the heavy lifting on compliance — letting you focus on running your store.

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Customer Support

One of SpotOn’s strongest selling points is its direct, human-first approach to support.

Unlike many POS providers that funnel you into chatbots or forums, SpotOn gives you 24/7 access to real support — whether that’s via phone, live chat, or your dedicated account manager.

During onboarding, many users are assigned a specialist who walks them through the setup process, helps import menus or inventory, and trains staff.

This level of service is rare in the POS industry unless you’re paying for enterprise-level support. SpotOn includes it for most businesses — especially restaurants and multi-location operations.

There’s also an extensive online help center, packed with video tutorials, step-by-step guides, and quick-start walkthroughs. You’ll find topics ranging from setting up delivery zones to creating custom promotions and exporting financial reports.

Beyond technical support, SpotOn offers ongoing optimization help. Account managers often check in after launch to recommend ways to improve usage — like enabling loyalty features or running local promotions.

If you’re used to being left on your own after setup, this will be a welcome change.

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Final Verdict: Should You Use SpotOn POS?

SpotOn is ideal for growing businesses that need more than just a basic cash register. If you’re running a restaurant, retail shop, or hybrid operation that combines in-person and online sales, SpotOn delivers the tools you need without forcing you to piece everything together through third-party apps.

The system is flexible enough to support single-location stores and scalable enough for multi-site businesses. Features like loyalty tracking, real-time analytics, and ecommerce order syncing make day-to-day operations more efficient and customer engagement easier to manage.

It’s also one of the few POS systems where customer support is genuinely a standout feature, not an afterthought.

If having a real human on the phone matters to you — especially during a launch, system change, or busy holiday rush — SpotOn’s team will give you peace of mind.

While it’s not the best fit for pure ecommerce brands or DIYers looking for a drag-and-drop setup, SpotOn is a smart choice if you’re focused on improving operational efficiency, increasing repeat business, and unifying your digital + physical presence.

The post SpotOn POS Review: The Best POS System for Restaurants and Retail? appeared first on Ecommerce-Platforms.com.

Adobe claims its AI tools are 'commercially safe', but does that stack up?

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Original Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/ai/adobe-claims-its-ai-tools-are-commercially-safe-but-its-latest-move-says-otherwise

I’m getting confused, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity

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Original Source: https://abduzeedo.com/barrel-riot-crafting-wine-branding-and-visual-identity

Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity

Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity

abduzeedo
07/15 — 2025

Explore how MiresBall crafted Barrel Riot’s unique visual identity, blending tradition with a rule-breaking spirit. Discover innovative branding.

Hey creative peers! Let’s dive into a case study that really pops: the branding for Barrel Riot. This isn’t your typical wine brand. It’s about an unconventional approach to winemaking, using spirit-barrel aging to create an intense, complex character. The team at MiresBall really nailed the visual identity for this one.

The Spark: A Name Born from Process

MiresBall understood that this wine needed a name and look that screamed “rule-breaker.” Their inspiration? The spirit barrel-making process itself. That’s how “Barrel Riot” came to be. It’s a name that instantly communicates the brand’s adventurous spirit.

Visual Identity: Scorched Cork and Bold Colors

The visual elements are key to Barrel Riot’s identity. Take the scorched cork emblem. It’s a smart piece of design. It signals a wine bursting with flavor, but also acts as a consistent identifier across all product variations. You can see this emblem clearly on the corks themselves (Image 1, page 2; Image 2, page 3). It’s a subtle yet powerful detail.

The labels use strong color reads to identify wine varietals. This also amplifies taste appeal. Look at the lineup of bottles (Image 3, page 4). Each color instantly tells you something about the wine inside. For instance, the Bourbon Barrel-Aged Red Wine Blend uses a vibrant red (Image 4, page 5), while the Rum Barrel-Aged Grenache features a deep purple (Image 5, page 6). The Tequila Barrel-Aged Orange Muscat gets a rich gold (Image 6, page 7). This system is flexible, ready to grow as Barrel Riot introduces new wine and spirit barrel combinations.

The Story: A Triumph Over Typical

The brand story is just as compelling as the visuals. It celebrates an adventurous, “try-anything” attitude. The back of the bottle reads, “A triumph over typical. We love a great-tasting wine as much as anybody. Maybe even more. But a well-worn spirit barrel should never go to waste when it’s got so much flavor left to give. That’s why our wines finish their journey inside one of these wooden wonders—just soaking it all in to create a unique, complex character that puts a cork in tradition. So take a sip, but take it slow. And savor the aged-in aromas of this one-of-a-kind liquid celebration.”

Dan Lipsky, owner of Barrel Riot, sums it up perfectly: “Our brand is defined by the dramatic difference between us and other wines. MiresBall understood our message and infused it into a name, logo, and image that set us apart from the competition. I couldn’t be happier.” This partnership highlights the power of a design studio truly understanding a client’s vision.

This project is a fantastic example of how strong branding and visual identity can elevate a product. MiresBall didn’t just design labels; they crafted a whole personality for Barrel Riot. It shows that even in traditional industries, there’s always room to break the mold with smart, impactful design.

Want to see more of their work? Check out MiresBall’s portfolio: https://miresball.com/work/barrel-riot/

Branding and visual identity artifacts

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Image from the Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity article on AbduzeedoImage from the Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity article on AbduzeedoImage from the Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity article on AbduzeedoImage from the Barrel Riot: Crafting a Wine Branding and Visual Identity article on Abduzeedo

Exciting New Tools for Designers, July 2025

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Original Source: https://webdesignerdepot.com/exciting-new-tools-for-designers-july-2025/

Summer is here, and designers are buzzing about the upcoming Apple release, design changes, and trends that are coming with it. The biggest being a glass effect. You’ll see some new tools for designers in this roundup that reflect that as well as some new AI tools and a few fun design kits. Here’s what’s […]

Understanding Memory Page Sizes on Arm64

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Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/memory-page-sizes-on-arm64/?utm_source=rss

Optimize ARM64 performance with larger memory page sizes. Learn when 64K pages benefit databases, AI, and I/O workloads plus Linux configuration steps.

Continue reading
Understanding Memory Page Sizes on Arm64
on SitePoint.

Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story

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Original Source: https://abduzeedo.com/focaccia-elevated-un-postos-branding-and-visual-identity-story

Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto’s Branding and Visual Identity Story

Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story

abduzeedo
07/09 — 2025

Discover Un Posto’s distinctive branding by Velvele Studio. Blending Italian tradition and Turkish warmth for a memorable focaccia experience.

Velvele Studio, based in Milan, helped Un Posto create its unique look. They blended Italian memories with Turkish hospitality. Un Posto is a shop in İzmir that makes Italian focaccia bread special.

Velvele Studio is known for its simple yet strong designs. They work with many different businesses. Their designs always mix classic styles with modern touches.

Making the Brand

Un Posto’s design mixes old Italian styles with a fresh, clear look. The design has four main parts:

Product Names: Italian names tell the story of the food.
Real Slogans: Slogans like “Ricetta Originale” (Original Recipe) and “Buona Per Tradizione” (Good by Tradition) make it feel real. You can see these on the shop.
Simple Graphics: Red and pink stripes are used a little bit. You can see them on the shop’s awning, food wraps, and inside the store.
Old-Style Letters: The letters used in the design look like old Italian signs.

The Look in Detail

Un Posto’s brand is clear everywhere. The main logo is on the shop, food wrappers, and staff clothes. It looks clean and classic. The red and white stripes remind you of Italy. They are on focaccia wraps and shop awnings, making everything look connected.

The staff uniforms also show the brand. Caps say “Il dolce far niente” (the sweetness of doing nothing) and “Un Posto.” Aprons and t-shirts have the Un Posto logo. They also have slogans like “Focaccia Italiana” and the “Original Recipe” stamps. Even the food wraps and coffee sleeves have the special red and white stripes and logo.

Un Posto’s shop space feels welcoming. It perfectly shows the brand’s goal: “a new neighborhood spot with an old soul.” The menu also fits the look, with items like “ITALIAN FOCACCIA” and meat and cheese boards.

Un Posto’s brand doesn’t just look good; it feels good too. It successfully creates a connection with customers.

Explore more of Velvele Studio’s projects at https://velvele.studio/work/un-posto 

Branding and visual identity artifacts

Image from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on AbduzeedoImage from the Focaccia Elevated: Un Posto's Branding and Visual Identity Story article on Abduzeedo

Unmasking The Magic: The Wizard Of Oz Method For UX Research

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Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2025/07/unmasking-magic-wizard-oz-method-ux-research/

New technologies and innovative concepts frequently enter the product development lifecycle, promising to revolutionize user experiences. However, even the most ingenious ideas risk failure without a fundamental grasp of user interaction with these new experiences.

Consider the plight of the Nintendo Power Glove. Despite being a commercial success (selling over 1 million units), its release in late 1989 was followed by its discontinuation less than a full year later in 1990. The two games created solely for the Power Glove sold poorly, and there was little use for the Glove with Nintendo’s already popular traditional console games.

A large part of the failure was due to audience reaction once the product (which allegedly was developed in 8 weeks) was cumbersome and unintuitive. Users found syncing the glove to the moves in specific games to be extremely frustrating, as it required a process of coding the moves into the glove’s preset move buttons and then remembering which buttons would generate which move. With the more modern success of Nintendo’s WII and other movement-based controller consoles and games, we can see the Power Glove was a concept ahead of its time.

If Power Glove’s developers wanted to conduct effective research prior to building it out, they would have needed to look beyond traditional methods, such as surveys and interviews, to understand how a user might truly interact with the Glove. How could this have been done without a functional prototype and slowing down the overall development process?

Enter the Wizard of Oz method, a potent tool for bridging the chasm between abstract concepts and tangible user understanding, as one potential option. This technique simulates a fully functional system, yet a human operator (“the Wizard”) discreetly orchestrates the experience. This allows researchers to gather authentic user reactions and insights without the prerequisite of a fully built product.

The Wizard of Oz (WOZ) method is named in tribute to the similarly named book by Frank L. Baum. In the book, the Wizard is simply a man hidden behind a curtain, manipulating the reality of those who travel the land of Oz. Dorothy, the protagonist, exposes the Wizard for what he is, essentially an illusion or a con who is deceiving those who believe him to be omnipotent. Similarly, WOZ takes technologies that may or may not currently exist and emulates them in a way that should convince a research participant they are using an existing system or tool.

WOZ enables the exploration of user needs, validation of nascent concepts, and mitigation of development risks, particularly with complex or emerging technologies.

The product team in our above example might have used this method to have users simulate the actions of wearing the glove, programming moves into the glove, and playing games without needing a fully functional system. This could have uncovered the illogical situation of asking laypeople to code their hardware to be responsive to a game, show the frustration one encounters when needing to recode the device when changing out games, and also the cumbersome layout of the controls on the physical device (even if they’d used a cardboard glove with simulated controls drawn in crayon on the appropriate locations.

Jeff Kelley credits himself (PDF) with coining the term WOZ method in 1980 to describe the research method he employed in his dissertation. However, Paula Roe credits Don Norman and Allan Munro for using the method as early as 1973 to conduct testing on an airport automated travel assistant. Regardless of who originated the method, both parties agree that it gained prominence when IBM later used it to conduct studies on a speech-to-text tool known as The Listening Typewriter (see Image below).

In this article, I’ll cover the core principles of the WOZ method, explore advanced applications taken from practical experience, and demonstrate its unique value through real-world examples, including its application to the field of agentic AI. UX practitioners can use the WOZ method as another tool to unlock user insights and craft human-centered products and experiences.

The Yellow Brick Road: Core Principles And Mechanics

The WOZ method operates on the premise that users believe they are interacting with an autonomous system while a human wizard manages the system’s responses behind the scenes. This individual, often positioned remotely (or off-screen), interprets user inputs and generates outputs that mimic the anticipated functionality of the experience.

Cast Of Characters

A successful WOZ study involves several key roles:

The User
The participant who engages with what they perceive as the functional system.
The Facilitator
The researcher who guides the user through predefined tasks and observes their behavior and reactions.
The Wizard
The individual manipulates the system’s behavior in real-time, providing responses to user inputs.
The Observer (Optional)
An additional researcher who observes the session without direct interaction, allowing for a secondary perspective on user behavior.

Setting The Stage For Believability: Leaving Kansas Behind

Creating a convincing illusion is key to the success of a WOZ study. This necessitates careful planning of the research environment and the tasks users will undertake. Consider a study evaluating a new voice command system for smart home devices. The research setup might involve a physical mock-up of a smart speaker and predefined scenarios like “Play my favorite music” or “Dim the living room lights.” The wizard, listening remotely, would then trigger the appropriate responses (e.g., playing a song, verbally confirming the lights are dimmed).

Or perhaps it is a screen-based experience testing a new AI-powered chatbot. You have users entering commands into a text box, with another member of the product team providing responses simultaneously using a tool like Figma/Figjam, Miro, Mural, or other cloud-based software that allows multiple users to collaborate simultaneously (the author has no affiliation with any of the mentioned products).

The Art Of Illusion

Maintaining the illusion of a genuine system requires the following:

Timely and Natural Responses
The wizard must react to user inputs with minimal delay and in a manner consistent with expected system behavior. Hesitation or unnatural phrasing can break the illusion.
Consistent System Logic
Responses should adhere to a predefined logic. For instance, if a user asks for the weather in a specific city, the wizard should consistently provide accurate information.
Handling the Unexpected
Users will inevitably deviate from planned paths. The wizard must possess the adaptability to respond plausibly to unforeseen inputs while preserving the perceived functionality.

Ethical Considerations

Transparency is crucial, even in a method that involves a degree of deception. Participants should always be debriefed after the session, with a clear explanation of the Wizard of Oz technique and the reasons for its use. Data privacy must be maintained as with any study, and participants should feel comfortable and respected throughout the process.

Distinguishing The Method

The WOZ method occupies a unique space within the UX research toolkit:

Unlike usability testing, which evaluates existing interfaces, Wizard of Oz explores concepts before significant development.
Distinct from A/B testing, which compares variations of a product’s design, WOZ assesses entirely new functionalities that might otherwise lack context if shown to users.
Compared to traditional prototyping, which often involves static mockups, WOZ offers a dynamic and interactive experience, enabling observation of real-time user behavior with a simulated system.

This method proves particularly valuable when exploring truly novel interactions or complex systems where building a fully functional prototype is premature or resource-intensive. It allows researchers to answer fundamental questions about user needs and expectations before committing significant development efforts.

Let’s move beyond the foundational aspects of the WOZ method and explore some more advanced techniques and critical considerations that can elevate its effectiveness.

Time Savings: WOZ Versus Crude Prototyping

It’s a fair question to ask whether WOZ is truly a time-saver compared to even cruder prototyping methods like paper prototypes or static digital mockups.

While paper prototypes are incredibly fast to create and test for basic flow and layout, they fundamentally lack dynamic responsiveness. Static mockups offer visual fidelity but cannot simulate complex interactions or personalized outputs.

The true time-saving advantage of the WOZ emerges when testing novel, complex, or AI-driven concepts. It allows researchers to evaluate genuine user interactions and mental models in a seemingly live environment, collecting rich behavioral data that simpler prototypes cannot. This fidelity in simulating a dynamic experience, even with a human behind the curtain, often reveals critical usability or conceptual flaws far earlier and more comprehensively than purely static representations, ultimately preventing costly reworks down the development pipeline.

Additional Techniques And Considerations

While the core principle of the WOZ method is straightforward, its true power lies in nuanced application and thoughtful execution. Seasoned practitioners may leverage several advanced techniques to extract richer insights and address more complex research questions.

Iterative Wizardry

The WOZ method isn’t necessarily a one-off endeavor. Employing it in iterative cycles can yield significant benefits. Initial rounds might focus on broad concept validation and identifying fundamental user reactions. Subsequent iterations can then refine the simulated functionality based on previous findings.

For instance, after an initial study reveals user confusion with a particular interaction flow, the simulation can be adjusted, and a follow-up study can assess the impact of those changes. This iterative approach allows for a more agile and user-centered exploration of complex experiences.

Managing Complexity

Simulating complex systems can be difficult for one wizard. Breaking complex interactions into smaller, manageable steps is crucial. Consider researching a multi-step onboarding process for a new software application. Instead of one person trying to simulate the entire flow, different aspects could be handled sequentially or even by multiple team members coordinating their responses.

Clear communication protocols and well-defined responsibilities are essential in such scenarios to maintain a seamless user experience.

Measuring Success Beyond Observation

While qualitative observation is a cornerstone of the WOZ method, defining clear metrics can add a layer of rigor to the findings. These metrics should match research goals. For example, if the goal is to assess the intuitiveness of a new navigation pattern, you might track the number of times users express confusion or the time it takes them to complete specific tasks.

Combining these quantitative measures with qualitative insights provides a more comprehensive understanding of the user experience.

Integrating With Other Methods

The WOZ method isn’t an island. Its effectiveness can be amplified by integrating it with other research techniques. Preceding a WOZ study with user interviews can help establish a deeper understanding of user needs and mental models, informing the design of the simulated experience. Following a WOZ study, surveys can gather broader quantitative feedback on the concepts explored. For example, after observing users interact with a simulated AI-powered scheduling tool, a survey could gauge their overall trust and perceived usefulness of such a system.

When Not To Use WOZ

WOZ, as with all methods, has limitations. A few examples of scenarios where other methods would likely yield more reliable findings would be:

Detailed Usability Testing
Humans acting as wizards cannot perfectly replicate the exact experience a user will encounter. WOZ is often best in the early stages, where prototypes are rough drafts, and your team is looking for guidance on a solution that is up for consideration. Testing on a more detailed wireframe or prototype would be preferable to WOZ when you have entered the detailed design phase.
Evaluating extremely complex systems with unpredictable outputs
If the system’s responses are extremely varied, require sophisticated real-time calculations that exceed human capacity, or are intended to be genuinely unpredictable, a human may struggle to simulate them convincingly and consistently. This can lead to fatigue, errors, or improvisations that don’t reflect the intended system, thereby compromising the validity of the findings.

Training And Preparedness

The wizard’s skill is critical to the method’s success. Training the individual(s) who will be simulating the system is essential. This training should cover:

Understanding the Research Goals
The wizard needs to grasp what the research aims to uncover.
Consistency in Responses
Maintaining consistent behavior throughout the sessions is vital for user believability.
Anticipating User Actions
While improvisation is sometimes necessary, the wizard should be prepared for common user paths and potential deviations.
Remaining Unbiased
The wizard must avoid leading users or injecting their own opinions into the simulation.
Handling Unexpected Inputs
Clear protocols for dealing with unforeseen user actions should be established. This might involve having a set of pre-prepared fallback responses or a mechanism for quickly consulting with the facilitator.

All of this suggests the need for practice in advance of running the actual session. We shouldn’t forget to have a number of dry runs in which we ask our colleagues or those who are willing to assist to not only participate but also think about possible responses that could stump the wizard or throw things off if the user might provide them during a live session.

I suggest having a believable prepared error statement ready to go for when a user throws a curveball. A simple response from the wizard of “I’m sorry, I am unable to perform that task at this time” might be enough to move the session forward while also capturing a potentially unexpected situation your team can address in the final product design.

Was This All A Dream? The Art Of The Debrief

The debriefing session following the WOZ interaction is an additional opportunity to gather rich qualitative data. Beyond asking “What did you think?” effective debriefing involves sharing the purpose of the study and the fact that the experience was simulated.

Researchers should then conduct psychological probing to understand the reasons behind user behavior and reactions. Asking open-ended questions like “Why did you try that?” or “What were you expecting to happen when you clicked that button?” can reveal valuable insights into user mental models and expectations.

Exploring moments of confusion, frustration, or delight in detail can uncover key areas for design improvement. Think about the potential information the Power Gloves’ development team could have uncovered if they’d asked participants what the experience of programming the glove and trying to remember what they’d programmed into which set of keys had been.

Case Studies: Real-World Applications

The value of the WOZ method becomes apparent when examining its application in real-world research scenarios. Here is an in-depth review of one scenario and a quick summary of another study involving WOZ, where this technique proved invaluable in shaping user experiences.

Unraveling Agentic AI: Understanding User Mental Models

A significant challenge in the realm of emerging technologies lies in user comprehension. This was particularly evident when our team began exploring the potential of Agentic AI for enterprise HR software.

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can autonomously pursue goals by making decisions, taking actions, and adapting to changing environments with minimal human intervention. Unlike generative AI that primarily responds to direct commands or generates content, Agentic AI is designed to understand user intent, independently plan and execute multi-step tasks, and learn from its interactions to improve performance over time. These systems often combine multiple AI models and can reason through complex problems. For designers, this signifies a shift towards creating experiences where AI acts more like a proactive collaborator or assistant, capable of anticipating needs and taking the initiative to help users achieve their objectives rather than solely relying on explicit user instructions for every step.

Preliminary research, including surveys and initial interviews, suggested that many HR professionals, while intrigued by the concept of AI assistance, struggled to grasp the potential functionality and practical implications of truly agentic systems — those capable of autonomous action and proactive decision-making. We saw they had no reference point for what agentic AI was, even after we attempted relevant analogies to current examples.

Building a fully functional agentic AI prototype at this exploratory stage was impractical. The underlying algorithms and integrations were complex and time-consuming to develop. Moreover, we risked building a solution based on potentially flawed assumptions about user needs and understanding. The WOZ method offered a solution.

Setup

We designed a scenario where HR employees interacted with what they believed was an intelligent AI assistant capable of autonomously handling certain tasks. The facilitator presented users with a web interface where they could request assistance with tasks like “draft a personalized onboarding plan for a new marketing hire” or “identify employees who might benefit from proactive well-being resources based on recent activity.”

Behind the scenes, a designer acted as the wizard. Based on the user’s request and the (simulated) available data, the designer would craft a response that mimicked the output of an agentic AI. For the onboarding plan, this involved assembling pre-written templates and personalizing them with details provided by the user. For the well-being resource identification, the wizard would select a plausible list of employees based on the general indicators discussed in the scenario.

Crucially, the facilitator encouraged users to interact naturally, asking follow-up questions and exploring the system’s perceived capabilities. For instance, a user might ask, “Can the system also schedule the initial team introductions?” The wizard, guided by pre-defined rules and the overall research goals, would respond accordingly, perhaps with a “Yes, I can automatically propose meeting times based on everyone’s calendars” (again, simulated).

As recommended, we debriefed participants following each session. We began with transparency, explaining the simulation and that we had another live human posting the responses to the queries based on what the participant was saying. Open-ended questions explored initial reactions and envisioned use. Task-specific probing, like “Why did you expect that?” revealed underlying assumptions. We specifically addressed trust and control (“How much trust…? What level of control…?”). To understand mental models, we asked how users thought the “AI” worked. We also solicited improvement suggestions (“What features…?”).

By focusing on the “why” behind user actions and expectations, these debriefings provided rich qualitative data that directly informed subsequent design decisions, particularly around transparency, human oversight, and prioritizing specific, high-value use cases. We also had a research participant who understood agentic AI and could provide additional insight based on that understanding.

Key Insights

This WOZ study yielded several crucial insights into user mental models of agentic AI in an HR context:

Overestimation of Capabilities
Some users initially attributed near-magical abilities to the “AI”, expecting it to understand highly nuanced or ambiguous requests without explicit instruction. This highlighted the need for clear communication about the system’s actual scope and limitations.
Trust and Control
A significant theme revolved around trust and control. Users expressed both excitement about the potential time savings and anxiety about relinquishing control over important HR processes. This indicated a need for design solutions that offered transparency into the AI’s decision-making and allowed for human oversight.
Value in Proactive Assistance
Users reacted positively to the AI proactively identifying potential issues (like burnout risk), but they emphasized the importance of the AI providing clear reasoning and allowing human HR professionals to review and approve any suggested actions.
Need for Tangible Examples
Abstract explanations of agentic AI were insufficient. Users gained a much clearer understanding through these simulated interactions with concrete tasks and outcomes.

Resulting Design Changes

Based on these findings, we made several key design decisions:

Emphasis on Transparency
The user interface would need to clearly show the AI’s reasoning and the data it used to make decisions.
Human Oversight and Review
Built-in approval workflows would be essential for critical actions, ensuring HR professionals retain control.
Focus on Specific, High-Value Use Cases
Instead of trying to build a general-purpose agent, we prioritized specific use cases where agentic capabilities offered clear and demonstrable benefits.
Educational Onboarding
The product onboarding would include clear, tangible examples of the AI’s capabilities in action.

Exploring Voice Interaction for In-Car Systems

In another project, we used the WOZ method to evaluate user interaction with a voice interface for controlling in-car functions. Our research question focused on the naturalness and efficiency of voice commands for tasks like adjusting climate control, navigating to points of interest, and managing media playback.

We set up a car cabin simulator with a microphone and speakers. The wizard, located in an adjacent room, listened to the user’s voice commands and triggered the corresponding actions (simulated through visual changes on a display and audio feedback). This allowed us to identify ambiguous commands, areas of user frustration with voice recognition (even though it was human-powered), and preferences for different phrasing and interaction styles before investing in complex speech recognition technology.

These examples illustrate the versatility and power of the method in addressing a wide range of UX research questions across diverse product types and technological complexities. By simulating functionality, we can gain invaluable insights into user behavior and expectations early in the design process, leading to more user-centered and ultimately more successful products.

The Future of Wizardry: Adapting To Emerging Technologies

The WOZ method, far from being a relic of simpler technological times, retains relevance as we navigate increasingly sophisticated and often opaque emerging technologies.

The WOZ method’s core strength, the ability to simulate complex functionality with human ingenuity, makes it uniquely suited for exploring user interactions with systems that are still in their nascent stages.

WOZ In The Age Of AI

Consider the burgeoning field of AI-powered experiences. Researching user interaction with generative AI, for instance, can be effectively done through WOZ. A wizard could curate and present AI-generated content (text, images, code) in response to user prompts, allowing researchers to assess user perceptions of quality, relevance, and trust without needing a fully trained and integrated AI model.

Similarly, for personalized recommendation systems, a human could simulate the recommendations based on a user’s stated preferences and observed behavior, gathering valuable feedback on the perceived accuracy and helpfulness of such suggestions before algorithmic development.

Even autonomous systems, seemingly the antithesis of human control, can benefit from WOZ studies. By simulating the autonomous behavior in specific scenarios, researchers can explore user comfort levels, identify needs for explainability, and understand how users might want to interact with or override such systems.

Virtual And Augmented Reality

Immersive environments like virtual and augmented reality present new frontiers for user experience research. WOZ can be particularly powerful here.

Imagine testing a novel gesture-based interaction in VR. A researcher tracking the user’s hand movements could trigger corresponding virtual events, allowing for rapid iteration on the intuitiveness and comfort of these interactions without the complexities of fully programmed VR controls. Similarly, in AR, a wizard could remotely trigger the appearance and behavior of virtual objects overlaid onto the real world, gathering user feedback on their placement, relevance, and integration with the physical environment.

The Human Factor Remains Central

Despite the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and immersive technologies, the fundamental principles of human-centered design remain as relevant as ever. Technology should serve human needs and enhance human capabilities.

The WOZ method inherently focuses on understanding user reactions and behaviors and acts as a crucial anchor in ensuring that technological progress aligns with human values and expectations.

It allows us to inject the “human factor” into the design process of even the most advanced technologies. Doing this may help ensure these innovations are not only technically feasible but also truly usable, desirable, and beneficial.

Conclusion

The WOZ method stands as a powerful and versatile tool in the UX researcher’s toolkit. The WOZ method’s ability to bypass limitations of early-stage development and directly elicit user feedback on conceptual experiences offers invaluable advantages. We’ve explored its core mechanics and covered ways of maximizing its impact. We’ve also examined its practical application through real-world case studies, including its crucial role in understanding user interaction with nascent technologies like agentic AI.

The strategic implementation of the WOZ method provides a potent means of de-risking product development. By validating assumptions, uncovering unexpected user behaviors, and identifying potential usability challenges early on, teams can avoid costly rework and build products that truly resonate with their intended audience.

I encourage all UX practitioners, digital product managers, and those who collaborate with research teams to consider incorporating the WOZ method into their research toolkit. Experiment with its application in diverse scenarios, adapt its techniques to your specific needs and don’t be afraid to have fun with it. Scarecrow costume optional.