| UI or UX | UI + UX - Runtime checkpoint that pauses AI or automation until an eligible human authorizes the next step | UI + UX - Routed decision workflow for requests that require authorized approval | UI + UX - Actionable queue for triaging many items that need human review | UI + UX - Final editable answer summary before committing a transaction | UI + UX - Context-sensitive workflow action suggested for the user's current record, case, conversation, or task |
| UI guidance | Render a human approval gate as a paused automation checkpoint with the proposed action, tool or workflow step, triggering rule, risk level, payload snapshot, requester or agent, approver eligibility, timeout, and explicit approve, reject, edit, cancel, or bypass controls. | Render approval workflow as a routed request record with requester, object, requested action, approver eligibility, required rule, current gate, due date, decision controls, comment history, and outcome consequences. | Render review queue as an actionable worklist with queue scope, counts, filters, sort order, row reason, owner, priority, age or SLA, status, preview context, selection, and row actions. | Render a single review page immediately before commit with a clear title, grouped answer sections, readable key/value rows, per-answer or per-section Change actions, skipped optional answers when meaningful, and a primary button whose label names the committed action. | Render the recommended next action as a bounded suggestion card or action slot that names the action, trigger context, expected outcome, owner, due time or urgency, eligibility status, and why the system is suggesting it now. |
| UX guidance | Use human approval gate when automation is ready to act but policy, risk, confidence, cost, access, publication, deployment, customer impact, or legal consequence requires a human decision before execution continues. | Use approval workflow when a submitted request cannot proceed until an authorized person, group, threshold, sequence, or external policy gate explicitly approves or rejects it. | Use review queue when a team repeatedly processes a changing set of tickets, comments, pull requests, content items, cases, requests, or records that require human inspection and action. | Use review before submit to give users one final chance to verify and correct captured answers before a transaction is sent, paid, published, applied, or otherwise committed. | Use recommended next action when the user is already working in a case, conversation, record, or workflow and the system can propose the next concrete step that reduces decision effort without removing user judgment. |
| Good UI | An AI support agent pauses before issuing a refund, shows the proposed amount, customer, policy match, confidence, source grounding, approver role, timeout, Approve refund, Edit amount, Reject, and Stop run controls. | A production deployment request shows requester, service, environment, change summary, required reviewer group, self-review restriction, wait timer, Approve and Reject with reason controls, and a timeline of route changes. | A support queue shows New triage, SLA at risk, owner, customer, status, priority, age, preview text, assignment, and next actions without opening every ticket. | A claim review page has Applicant, Contact details, Evidence, and Declaration sections; each row shows the captured answer and a Change link with hidden context such as Change email address. | A support case sidebar recommends Send refund-policy article because the customer asked about a refund twice, shows confidence, source snippets, and opens a draft for review. |
| Bad UI | A banner says Human approval needed but does not show the tool call, payload, approver, timeout, or resume consequence. | A request page says Waiting without naming the approver, required count, due date, or escalation path. | A review queue shows a flat list of titles with no reason, age, owner, status, priority, or action controls. | A final page says Check your answers but shows only a paragraph and a Continue button with no answers, section headings, or change links. | A large Continue button is labelled Recommended without any trigger, reason, consequence, or alternative. |
| Good UX | A billing lead opens the paused refund gate, sees that the amount is under policy but source grounding is partial, edits the refund to the verified amount, approves, and the agent resumes only that step. | A requester submits a deployment, sees it is waiting for Release managers, cannot self-approve, receives a change request with a required comment, edits the change summary, and resubmits to the same route. | A reviewer claims the oldest SLA-at-risk ticket, opens a preview, assigns it to Billing, returns to the queue with the row removed, and lands on the next oldest item. | A user changes their phone number from review, lands on the phone page with the old value pre-filled, saves, and returns directly to review with other answers preserved. | A representative reviews the suggested reply, sees that it was triggered by customer intent and a matching knowledge article, edits the draft, and sends it. |
| Bad UX | A human approves a stale agent action from email and the agent applies it to a different customer state. | The first approver clicks Approve and the system marks the whole request approved even though policy required everyone to approve. | Two reviewers open the same unclaimed item, both act, and the second decision overwrites the first with no stale-row warning. | A user selects Change address, edits one field, then has to repeat every later page before finding the review page again. | A user accepts a suggested discount and only afterward learns it changed contract terms. |
| Best fit | An AI agent, workflow, deployment, or automation is ready to perform a high-impact step and must pause for human authorization. | A submitted request needs authorized approval before a deployment, purchase, access grant, publication, content change, policy exception, financial action, or workflow step can proceed. | A team or individual repeatedly reviews many independently queued items. | A user has provided multiple answers and should verify them before a consequential submit action. | Users are working in a record, case, conversation, or workflow where choosing the next action is costly or error-prone. |
| Avoid when | The action has already happened and users only need an audit log. | The user only needs to check their own answers before submission. | The task is a single request moving through a governed approval route. | The task is a single low-risk field with clear inline validation and an obvious submit action. | The action is always required and should be a task, validation, or workflow gate. |
| Required state | Paused gate state with proposed action, payload snapshot, reason for gate, and run context. | Draft or submit-ready request handoff state | Queue loading and count state | Initial review state with grouped captured answers, relevant sections, and explicit submit action. | No recommendation state with normal workflow controls still available. |
| Accessibility burden | Expose gate status, proposed action, target, payload summary, risk, approver rule, timeout, and current run state as text. | Use labelled request summary, approver, status, due date, decision, comment, and history regions. | Use labelled queue name, count, filters, sort, group, row status, selection, preview, and action controls. | Use headings that make the review task explicit, such as Check your answers before sending your application. | Use a labelled region or card heading that identifies the suggestion as recommended, optional, and scoped to the current work object. |
| Common misuse | Showing Approve without the exact action, payload, target, risk, or resume consequence. | Showing a generic pending message without the approver, gate, rule, or due date. | Using an ordinary table with no review reason, urgency, ownership, or decision actions. | Using a review page that contains no captured answers. | Calling a static primary button a recommended next action without context-sensitive logic or reason. |