05+08 · THE WIZARDONE QUESTION AT A TIME · ONE RECOMMENDATION
V012026-08-24
Merged winner 05+08: "one plain question at a time, assumptions said out loud, a 'why we ask' on every step; the flow ends in a single recommended booking with bags, protection, and timing already chosen." Five questions, price the moment both endpoints exist, round trip assumed and said out loud. Same trip as 16: Boston → Rome, arriving Fri, Sep 4, booked Mon, Aug 24. All prices and lead times are real (Helios dev data, ideation/data/).
Why we ask: pricing is set country to country. We do not need anything more precise to show you a price.
City or addressBoston, MA, United States
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Step 1 of the live path collects every trip decision in one undifferentiated form, and the audit says it overwhelms, worst on mobile and for the older audience. One plain question with its reason attached is the direct answer, and it is the accessibility-friendliest structure in the field (accessibility is now required in the rebuild).E005 · C036 · C072 · E107
Why we ask: the pair of countries sets your price. A hotel, a home, or a cruise ship all count.
City, address, hotel, or cruise shipHotel de Russie, Rome, Italy
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05·3[ QUESTION 3 · DATES · THE PRICE APPEARS ]
Both endpoints now exist, so the price chip appears and never leaves. Round trip is not a question: it is an assumption said out loud, with the one-way case a visible choice.
To · Hotel de Russie, Rome, Italy✎ Edit destination
We assumed a round trip, both ways covered.
Both waysOne way
QUESTION 3 OF 5FROM $444 PER STANDARD BAG
When do the bags need to be in Rome?
Why we ask: the date decides which speeds can still make it. Nothing greys out without a reason.
Needs to arrive byFri, Sep 4▾
For the trip home we assumed pickup in Rome a week after you arrive, Fri, Sep 11.✎ Edit return date
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The founder rule bans hiding prices, not guidance, and the funnel data says 73% of quotes die at the price with everything after it nearly free. So the wizard's price appears the instant the country pair exists, question 3 of 5, and every remaining question happens after the price. The dashed rows are the concept's signature: silent defaults the live path already makes (round trip expected, return a week later) said out loud with a visible way out.C045 · E087 · E049 · E106 · C011
To · Hotel de Russie, Rome, Italy✎ Edit destination
Round trip · both ways · assumed✎ Edit trip type
There by · Fri, Sep 4 · home pickup Fri, Sep 11✎ Edit dates
Bags · 2 standard bags✎ Edit bags
QUESTION 5 OF 5$1,008 OUTBOUND · 2 BAGS
How should we collect them in Boston?
Why we ask: doorstep pickup needs two business days to mail your shipping packet. Dropping off skips the wait and keeps cheaper speeds open longer.
Doorstep pickup· free · we come to you Wed, Aug 26
$0
Drop off at a courier· print your labels · a location near you
$0
See our recommendation →
05·6[ THE RECOMMENDATION ]
The wizard's artifact: one recommended booking with bags, protection, and timing already chosen, what it ruled out said plainly, and every choice reopenable by name.
To · Hotel de Russie, Rome, Italy✎ Edit destination
Round trip · both ways · assumed✎ Edit trip type
There by · Fri, Sep 4 · home pickup Fri, Sep 11✎ Edit dates
Bags · 2 standard bags✎ Edit bags
Pickup · doorstep, Wed, Aug 26 · free✎ Edit pickup
OUR RECOMMENDATION
One booking, ready to go
Outbound · Boston → Rome · Preferred$1,008
Picked up at your door Wed, Aug 26 · In Rome Thu, Sep 3 · guaranteed · $504 × 2 standard bags
Return · Rome → Boston · Select$848
Picked up in Rome Fri, Sep 11 · Home Wed, Sep 23 · guaranteed · $424 × 2 standard bags
✓ $500 protection per bag included ✓ Door to door, tracked the whole way$1,856
What we ruled out, and why
Select outbound · needed 14 days' doorstep notice for Sep 4 · dropping off would bring it back at $444 a bagA faster return · Preferred home costs $55 more a bag, and your return has no deadline to beat
Charged in full when you book. Change or cancel free until we ring your doorbell.Book this trip →
The live path already picks one tier, silently, by two competing accidental rules, and deletes unavailable speeds without a trace. The recommendation makes both honest: it names its pick, its reasons, and what it ruled out. This ruled-out box is the SLT explain-and-hint direction made concrete, and it is the only thing separating "one recommendation" from the silent removal customers suffer today.C159 · C148 · C147 · C153
05·7[ EDIT IN PLACE ]
What Edit does: no back-navigation, no replay. The clicked row expands into its question right where it sits, every other answer stays put, and only the recommendation recomputes. Here "Edit dates" is open on the recommendation screen with a new date picked.
To · Hotel de Russie, Rome, Italy✎ Edit destination
Round trip · both ways · assumed✎ Edit trip type
When do the bags need to be in Rome?
Why we ask: the date decides which speeds can still make it.
Needs to arrive byFri, Sep 18▾
CancelSave date
Bags · 2 standard bags✎ Edit bags
Pickup · doorstep · free✎ Edit pickup
OUR RECOMMENDATION
Outbound · Boston → Rome · Preferred$1,008
✓ $500 protection per bag included$1,856
Recalculating for Fri, Sep 18 · your new date gives Select 25 days' notice, so the cheaper speed is coming back.
[ NOTES ]
The concept and its lineage: 05 "The wizard that explains itself" (survived every cull round) merged with 08 "One recommendation" (round 1 elimination, recalled at the 2026-08-21 alignment meeting); the standing ruling from shaping was already "keep only if the artifact is one recommendation." Premise steal targets: TurboTax and Lemonade for the wizard, Stitch Fix and Warby Parker for the quiz, GOV.UK for one concern per question. This is the only winner that never received a worked candidate card, so this wireframe is its first concrete definition. Decisions locked with Phil 2026-08-24: price chip at question 3 (a), round trip as spoken assumption with inline opt-out, ruled-out list on the card (b), always-visible why lines, the 16 story reused, escapes as persistent links.
Question economics: 86% of the funnel dies at the pricing page and 72.96% of web quotes never advance past state 0, so questions placed before the price sit in the only leak while questions after it are nearly free (E049, E087). The wizard therefore front-loads only the two questions pricing genuinely needs (the country pair, C001), shows "from $444 per standard bag" the moment both exist, and spends its remaining three questions after the price. The founder rule bans hiding prices, not guidance (C045). Median booked quote converts in 379 seconds, same session (E093): five questions must stay under that, and returning users get the "prefer everything on one page" escape (the Adaptive Preflight Ledger card requires a grouped full-form mode; Paradigm C's stated risk is "more steps for returning users").
The assumptions ledger: every dashed row is a silent default the live path already makes, said out loud. Round trip expected by customers ("It didn't even occur to me it wouldn't be round trip", E106; C280 makes airline convention binding) while the path has no round-trip concept at all (C010). One standard bag prefilled (C131, a CRO default). A return pickup a week later (DAYS_BETWEEN_LEGS = 7 in Helios). Dates the customer never picked (C011). Delivery-anchored dating with the pickup date hidden (C112). $500 declared value included (C274). The concept's bet is that saying these out loud converts better than making them silently.
The recommendation's honesty problem: today a tier is always preselected by two competing accidental rules, neither designed (C159), unavailable tiers are absent rather than greyed (C148, SLT direction: explain and hint), and Economy never runs on outbound trips by a hardcoded flag (C153). A one-option screen is indistinguishable from silent removal unless it names what it ruled out, so the ruled-out box is structural, not decoration. Bags never gate speeds (C141), which is why the bags question can sit late without costing the recommendation anything.
Risks this stimulus should test (kill-signal candidates, since no candidate card exists): (1) novices skip the why lines and go straight to the price, making the explanation layer dead weight; (2) five screens tax the same-session converting majority (E093) more than one overwhelming screen does; (3) the recommendation reads as "only one option" scarcity rather than service, the same register risk as 55's countdown; (4) the older audience that prefers a person (E010) treats the wizard as another wall, so "Call our team" must stay visible on every step (R5). Wizard-of-Oz testing with a 65+ cell was already mandated for the guided-companion cousin; the same gate applies here.
The wizard is secretly one page (Phil ruling 2026-08-24): answered questions collapse into individual thin ledger rows, each with its own named Edit; the active question is just the expanded section at the bottom. Edit expands that row in place, one click from anywhere, with no back-navigation and no replay. This works because the five questions are independent inputs (bags never gate speeds, C141; pickup never changes the route), so no answer can invalidate another: only the recommendation is derived, and it alone recomputes (05·7). This is the deterministic protocol the Adaptive Preflight Ledger card demanded to avoid "degrading into an unpredictable wizard," it matches the Apple Store accordion influence (one decision at a time, completed sections show Edit), and it collapses the "grouped full-form mode" into the same page with every section expanded.
Boundaries: cruise is deliberately absent; a wizard that asks "which cruise" collides with 02 and 04's territory, and the destination field simply accepts a ship as an answer. Multi-city (3+ shipments, C281) and the machine caller (C282) are out of scope for v01 and belong to the grouped full-form mode. Numbers reuse the 16 data set: US→IT Preferred $504 / Select $444 per standard bag, IT→US Select $424, doorstep minimums from the code-executed lead-time run (ideation/data/2026-08-24-16-leadtime-logic.md).