@simon AI is the mechanism, not the thing. How it does...

AI is the mechanism, not the thing. How it does it's job is largely irrelevant to the end user.

When I want help at the library - I don't talk to the "person" - I talk to the "librarian".

So: "Wizard".

Windows has had things like the "Network Setup Wizard" for literally decades. We know it means "here let me help you do this specialized task". Co-opt the term.

That or "assistant". But "wizard" has a pre-established meaning in this context.

Like 13 November at 6:32 | Wall-to-wall | Open on infosec.exchange

4 comments

Simon Willison

@tbortels Wizard is actually pretty good, I worry that it carries a huge amount of baggage though - I would almost never select the "wizard" option in a piece of software I was using

13 November at 6:37 | Open on fedi.simonwillison.net

Tom Bortels

@simon

Well - that baggage is the context you're looking to exploit. "Wizard" means I push this button and something not a person walks me thru it.

As for you never selecting the "Wizard" option: I'll say this in response, that I say to a lot of the very talented folks I talk to: you are not the norm. You're a weird edge case, an outlier, a wild card - talented. This is awesome, but of the issues it causes is you're probably not a great representative sample of your users. Most of them don't think like you or know what you know, which is part of why you're making tools for them and not the other way around. And - that's fine!

Lol, if it makes you feel any better, I don't usually do wizards either. i wank to know the options and how it works. But I know that's the exception, not the rule.

@simon

Well - that baggage is the context you're looking to exploit. "Wizard" means I push this button and something not a person walks me thru it.

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13 November at 6:53 | Open on infosec.exchange

Paul Moore

@simon @tbortels Maybe that's true, but you can say *exactly* the same thing about the term AI. I'd never click a button that said AI, for the same reasons you give for Wizard.

13 November at 11:35 | Open on mastodon.social

Neil Kandalgaonkar

@simon @tbortels In UX, Wizard generally refers to a series of screens that guide you through complex options

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/wizards/

Now, the average user may not know that, so perhaps “Wizard” could still work, but I think something like

“✨Suggest query”

might get across what you want, and give the user the right mindset to carefully evaluate what the AI does

13 November at 17:21 | Open on xoxo.zone