The Nest Cafe in Wigan is not “just a cafe”. It is a public facing training environment designed to help young adults with additional needs build practical independence, one everyday skill at a time.

A paper based ordering process can work brilliantly, until the wear and tear starts to get in the way of the service. At The Nest Cafe, the goal is not just a faster till, it is an ordering system that trainees can run confidently, with less staff prompting, in a public facing environment.

What is The Nest Cafe trying to achieve for trainees?

The Nest Cafe is trying to give trainees the skills they need for adulthood, with practice that feels real. It is part of The Hamlet Wigan CIC, which supports young adults with additional needs (mostly aged 19 to 25, and in some cases up to 27) through pathways that build independence and work skills. (thehamletwigancic.co.uk)

Liz Barton at The Hamlet described it in plain terms: trainees learn customer service and food and drink preparation, but the bigger aim is independence. The point is that the skills learned in the cafe can transfer into life at home and in the community.

One example Liz Barton shared stayed with us: a trainee who could not reliably make a hot drink when he first started, later made tea for builders in his family home, unprompted, and kept it going throughout the day. That is exactly the kind of everyday competence the cafe is designed to build.

Where does the cafe sit within The Hamlet?

The Nest Cafe is one of several “vocations” at The Hamlet, alongside activities like a printing shop (producing bespoke and personalised products) and retail. The cafes are among the best known because they are open to the public, and bring customers into the setting trainees are learning in.

The menu is deliberately practical: accessible meals that trainees can learn to prepare for customers, and also take those skills home (the same way learning to make a coffee for a customer can translate into making a decent cup of tea for family or visitors).

How did the original ordering system work, and why did it work so well?

It worked because it was visual, consistent, and built around what trainees can do today.

The Nest Cafe has used picture symbols in ordering books, adapted from PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), which is a picture based approach used to support communication. (asatonline.org)

In practice, the process is straightforward.

  • A customer or trainee selects an item by matching the request to a visual symbol.
  • The symbol is placed onto an order form.
  • The barista or kitchen trainee follows matching step by step picture strips for each item.
  • The same picture matching logic carries through, from taking the order to making the drink to using the till.

The discipline here matters. Trainees do not need to read or write to take part, they need to identify and match pictures.

Liz Barton also described a levelled approach to building independence behind the counter.

  • Level 1: picture strip plus staff prompting, step by step
  • Level 2: picture strip used independently, with staff nearby
  • Level 3: no strip needed, trainee can sequence tasks and multitask
  • Level 4: trainee supports others, coaching Level 1 baristas through the visual steps

That structure is not just training design. It is also a product requirement: any digital system has to respect the same progression and keep the service predictable.

If it already worked, why change it?

Because what worked educationally was starting to fail operationally.

Liz Barton described hours spent cutting and laminating tiny symbols, then replacing them when they were lost, binned by mistake, or damaged by spills. In a public cafe, these materials also have to be cleaned regularly to maintain hygiene standards, and the physical kit does not always stay in good condition.

UK government guidance for food businesses is clear that cleaning and hygiene controls need to be planned and followed, including regular cleaning of work surfaces, equipment and touch points. (gov.uk)

So the case for change was practical as much as it was aspirational.

  • Less time remaking and cleaning paper materials
  • A better customer experience, with fewer tatty looking ordering books
  • A more robust process that does not degrade when a symbol goes missing

What does “accessible digital” mean in a public facing cafe?

It means keeping the cognitive load low.

A common mistake in digitisation is to add options because the software can. Liz Barton gave a simple example: adding syrup options to hot chocolates might be easy technically, but it can make the ordering flow less black and white for trainees, which increases confusion.

So “accessible digital” here is not about feature depth, it is about consistency.

  • Keep the same symbols trainees already recognise
  • Preserve picture to picture matching as the core interaction
  • Avoid expanding the menu structure in ways that make choices ambiguous
  • Make sure the workflow is predictable across the till, barista station, and kitchen

If you want a digital system that supports independence, you have to treat predictability as a design constraint, not a nice to have.

How did the prototype come about, and where is it now?

The work came through connections with Wigan Council and colleagues involved in the project, and it followed an earlier attempt with another supplier that did not reach a usable outcome.

When Liz Barton returned from maternity leave, the project was restarted with a fresh approach. She joined an initial meeting to explain what the cafe needed, and then an Agilisys team member visited the cafe to see the existing paper workflow in context.

Over the summer break, a prototype was built. As of 16 September 2026, Liz Barton described it as up and running in prototype form, reviewed by the cafe team, and in the process of being adapted based on feedback. The next step is a trial phase, with trainees involved once the system is stable enough to avoid confusion between two ordering methods.

What should councils and public service teams take from this?

First, this is not a “tech upgrade” story. It is an independence story.

Second, the fastest route to something usable was not a requirements document, it was seeing the workflow, then building around the reality of the service.

Third, there is a pattern here that public services will recognise.

  • Start from what end users can do today
  • Make the next step feel familiar
  • Protect the service from unnecessary complexity

This is also where “one of three things will be true” tends to show up in practice.

  • You already have a workflow that works, but it is brittle and hard to sustain.
  • You have a workflow that does not work, and staff are compensating manually.
  • You have no consistent workflow at all, and you are starting from scratch.

The Nest Cafe started from the strongest position: a workflow that already supported independence, and needed a digital form that kept the same principles.

Where does Agilisys fit, and what is our bias?

Agilisys helped build the prototype ordering system around the cafe’s visual process, based on a visit to understand how trainees take orders, make drinks, and use the till.

Our bias is straightforward: we think the best public service tools are the ones that make end users more capable, with or without us. We build your capability, not your dependency.

Key takeaways

  • Accessibility is not a feature list, it is a workflow that stays predictable for end users.
  • Digitising a process that already supports independence is often faster than “reinventing” the service.
  • In a public facing environment, durability and hygiene pressures can be a valid driver for replacing paper tools.
  • Trial planning matters: do not introduce a second system to trainees until the new one is stable enough to avoid confusion.

Frequently asked questions

What is PECS, and why does it matter for a cafe ordering process?

PECS is a picture based communication approach that helps people communicate using visual symbols. For a cafe, the key idea is that picture matching can let trainees take orders and follow preparation steps without relying on reading, writing, or heavy staff prompting.

What makes a digital ordering system genuinely accessible?

It is accessible when end users can complete the workflow reliably and independently. In practice that means consistent symbols, low ambiguity, and the same logic from ordering through to preparation. Extra options that make choices less clear can reduce accessibility, even if they look like improvements.

When should a team introduce a new system to trainees?

Introduce it when the new workflow is stable, tested by staff, and unlikely to change in ways that confuse trainees. Running two systems in parallel can create avoidable uncertainty. A controlled trial phase after final tweaks often works better than a gradual rollout with frequent changes.

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