What Kiosk Mode is

Kiosk Mode turns any tablet or browser screen into a shared, always-on view of your team's tasks. Anyone can walk up, see what's available, tap their name, do the work, and tap Done. There's no login, no app to install, and no admin overhead between the worker and the task.

It's built for shared physical spaces — café back-of-house, salon stations, retreat centres, co-working desks, classrooms. Anywhere a team works in the same room and needs a calm, glance-able source of truth for "who's doing what".

How the kiosk shows tasks

The board has three columns:

  • Available — pending tasks that are due today or earlier. Anything overdue from a prior day gets an amber Overdue badge so a manager can see at a glance what's slipped.
  • In Progress — tasks someone has claimed. Each card shows the claimer's avatar and first name, so the rest of the team knows who's on it.
  • Completed Today — finished work for the current day, with a green tick and who completed it.

Every card carries the task title, an effort indicator (1–5 dots), the group/category, and a due time when set. Tap the small i icon to open the full task details — title, description, due time, and current claimer — without claiming anything.

Creating tasks that work well on the kiosk

Kiosk tasks are just normal Nudge tasks. Anything you create on web or mobile shows up on the kiosk automatically when its due date is today or earlier. A few habits that make the board read well:

  1. Title it like an instruction, not a noun. "Wipe down counters" beats "Counters". The kiosk renders the title large and that's the first thing the walk-up reader scans.
  2. Add a short description for anything that isn't blindingly obvious. The description is shown in the task details modal — useful for the new person on their first shift who doesn't yet know that "deep clean grinder" means flush the chute and brush the burrs.
  3. Set an effort level (1–5). The dots on the card help a walk-up worker pick a 2-minute task between customers vs. a 20-minute one when the room is quiet.
  4. Use groups for sections. "Kitchen", "Front of house", "Restock". Group tags render as small chips next to the title and let teams sort the board by where they're standing.
  5. Set a due time when timing matters. "Empty the bins" at 18:00 reads differently than the same task with no time — the kiosk shows it on the card and uses it to flag overdue work.

Pairing the tablet

Setup is a one-tap flow:

  1. Open kiosk.nudgeworks.app on the shared tablet. You'll see a rotating QR code.
  2. From the Nudge mobile app, open your space → Settings → Kiosk → Scan a device. Aim at the QR.
  3. Confirm on your phone. The tablet binds to your space and switches to a 4-digit PIN screen.

The PIN protects the board if the tablet leaves your space. Set it once when you pair, and your team uses the same PIN every shift to unlock.

What the kiosk does NOT do

A few deliberate non-features keep the kiosk calm:

  • No identity check. Anyone can claim as anyone else — the kiosk is a shared surface, not a login. If you need per-person authentication, use the web or mobile app where each person is signed in.
  • No editing. The kiosk is a do/done surface, not a task editor. Create, edit, and delete tasks from the web or mobile app; the kiosk reflects whatever the admin set up.
  • No off-shift hiding. By default, every member of the household can claim every task. If you need off-duty enforcement (members can't claim outside their work hours), that's coming as a plan-gated feature.

Renewing the session

Each pairing has an expiry — typically 30 days. The kiosk's info drawer (top-right corner of the active board) shows when it renews. The owner gets an email reminder three days before expiry; renewing is a single tap from the same settings screen you paired from.

Best practices we've learned

  • Mount the tablet at eye level, not flat on a counter. People naturally read the board when it's vertical; flat tablets get used as plates within a week.
  • Keep titles to ~5 words. Long titles wrap and the card stops being glanceable.
  • One kiosk per space. Two kiosks for the same space race each other — the first claim wins, which is fine, but it means people walk over to the other screen for nothing.
  • Use the description field for context, not instructions. The walk-up worker should be able to start the task without reading a paragraph. Two lines of description max.

That's it. Pair once, set good tasks, leave it on. The whole point is that the kiosk fades into the background and the team gets on with the work.