Wizard-of-Oz Study

A research methodology in human-computer interaction where participants believe they are interacting with an autonomous system, but a hidden human operator (the "wizard") is actually controlling some or all of the system's responses. This technique allows researchers to evaluate user interfaces and interaction designs before fully implementing complex functionality like speech recognition, sign language analysis, or AI systems. In accessibility research, Wizard-of-Oz studies are valuable for testing assistive technology concepts and gathering user feedback on system designs that would be technically challenging or expensive to build.