Retail has a transaction moment: the pause at the checkout, payment with cash/card, and then being handed the receipt. The checkout process creates closure, transfers product ownership, and signals to the customer that they can now leave the store. Amazon Go entirely eliminated these moments.
As the founding UX designer, my job was to figure out what happens to trust, legibility, and customer confidence when that interaction model intentionally disappears.
I owned the end-to-end customer-facing digital experience: entry and exit flows, real-time receipt design, and the app surfaces that made an invisible, sensor-driven system feel understandable and trustworthy. I also designed the back-of-house operational layer: the human-in-the-loop moderation tools, inventory systems, and planogram tooling that the people running the store depended on to keep the customer experience honest.
There was no prior art. Every decision required building a new interaction model from newly-established principles, in close collaboration with computer vision, software, hardware, retail ops, and commerce teams.
Amara Hulslander – Lead AI UX Designer 