VOICE SKILLS
Alexa
Conversational Interface firsts for famous brands.
The simplest interface,
is just your voice.
is just your voice.
BRIEF 1
ARSENAL FC
ARSENAL FC
"Enable fans who can't watch the games to keep up with the club."
Integrating Arsenal with Amazon Alexa seamlessly provides supporters with access to pre-match build-up, live in-game support and post-match analysis through conversation.
A constant fixture at the top of Amazon's Alexa charts, while live, the skill had an average rating of 4.4 out of 5.
What I did
"I'm sorry I didn't understand that."
Alexa, always.
Alexa, always.
Alexa skills for the most part were deceptively free of complex AI.
In essence they are chatbots with a spoken interface. They boil down to a conversation tree that works like this:
A: Given this context
B: If the user says this, say this back
C: Set the context to a new one
So it's a simple case of manually mapping out everything that a user can say and writing a script for every meaningful response under that circumstance.
Today, you'd use GPT-3 to help be more generative in the responses, but back then brute force was the order of the day.
In essence they are chatbots with a spoken interface. They boil down to a conversation tree that works like this:
A: Given this context
B: If the user says this, say this back
C: Set the context to a new one
So it's a simple case of manually mapping out everything that a user can say and writing a script for every meaningful response under that circumstance.
Today, you'd use GPT-3 to help be more generative in the responses, but back then brute force was the order of the day.
Making a voice skill
Decide the main functions
Think about everything that your voice skill can help with, that makes sense for audio only.
Think about everything that your voice skill can help with, that makes sense for audio only.
Wizard-of-OZ Prototyping
Load your sentences into a soundboard. Have users in an empty room talking to the "Alexa" and manually trigger those canned phrases in response. You'll quickly find out what things you missed, as you run out of appropriate responses.
Load your sentences into a soundboard. Have users in an empty room talking to the "Alexa" and manually trigger those canned phrases in response. You'll quickly find out what things you missed, as you run out of appropriate responses.
Design for Voice
No long lists or menu options, think about what it's like to wait around for Alexa to drone on, cut to the chase - and fast.
No long lists or menu options, think about what it's like to wait around for Alexa to drone on, cut to the chase - and fast.
States, Flows + Strings
Map out those states with all the possible utterances, how and when states change and link them through to every string and command that applies. Then get busy writing a hundred variations of saying the same phrase so you can cope with the naturally lazy way people speak to their devices.
Map out those states with all the possible utterances, how and when states change and link them through to every string and command that applies. Then get busy writing a hundred variations of saying the same phrase so you can cope with the naturally lazy way people speak to their devices.
BRIEF 2
Grey Goose
Grey Goose
"Connect the brand to customers in their own homes."
The Sipping Room is an Alexa Skill that brings the expertise of the master mixologist into the home. Ask The Sipping Room to "make me something with lime" or "make me the perfect Espresso Martini" and it will draw on all of Grey Goose's experience to make the perfect vodka cocktail.
The team shot some beautiful robot inspired mixology images, that appear on the Echo Show.
More work
Turn brain training for football into a game.
This pro-active brief that began as a VR experience. It opened out into democratising the methods that top-flight clubs use to build their players' mental resilience
This pro-active brief that began as a VR experience. It opened out into democratising the methods that top-flight clubs use to build their players' mental resilience
We brought the world's best personal trainer into the home, using advanced AI and the Kinect camera.
A video platform to bring Sir David's life's work to a new generation. It allows people to explore the natural world anew, through over 1000 clips of his most iconic moments. Viewers can combine their favourite moments into collections to tell the story in their own way, and share it with the world.