The Ideator - A voice case study

I've created this project to show my approach to designing voice user interfaces. 

The brief

Design a multimodal service that is driven by voice but that also allows interactions through other touch points.  

Background & "Research"

"Research" because I had limited time and used myself as the user.

I’m a creative person and I love making things, be it paper flowers, amigurumi, voice skills, Arduino-powered devices, or simply colouring a book. But sometimes it can be very difficult to decide what to do. This is really frustrating! I’ve had all these ideas throughout the week and now I’m doing the same thing I do everyday, nothing new, same old. And I’m not alone in this. Most of my friends (designers or not) struggle with the same situation on a regular basis. 

I try to write my ideas down, as much as I can, but my system is quite disorganised. I even grouped the way I record my ideas in terms of frequency of use of the tool.

UseOfExistingTools

Frequency of tools I use to record my ideas

Ideas are an awesome thing. I come up with ideas all the time and some of them are truly amazing! They come at any time, while walking around, in the shower, eating, in the middle of the night, watching tv; and in any form, paper crafts, painting, apps, IoT devices… 

I have so many ideas on a regular basis and still, I don’t get to do “the things” I come up with. But why?

Why don’t I do “the thing”?

I had a look at the list of reasons why I don’t really do all the ideas that I come up with:

  • Ideas come up at a bad time (in the shower or in the middle of the night)
  • It’s too complicated or has too many dependencies (including lack of skills required to complete “the thing”)
  • I just don’t know where to start and it becomes daunting
  • I forget about them
  • I lose motivation over time, as I don’t do much to move them forward, I abandon them 

Sometimes, I have an idea for months or years and do nothing about it. Suddenly one day, I decide it’s the time to do it! But why? 

What triggers a memory of an idea?

What’s the trigger? I wondered. And I realised it can be anything: 

  • A conversation about something similar
  • Accidentally finding a note or a reminder while I was looking for something different
  • Pressure from others, when I’ve involved them in some way and they expect something from me
  • Seeing something similar on the street and thinking “I thought about that ages ago!”

With all these ideas in mind, I decided that it was time to use that creativity to get me doing all those new projects.  

First things first.

How do people get things done?

We all have that friend who’s always doing something new and different and it seems like her day has at least 10 hours more than ours. She does so many things! How do they do it?

There are hundreds of articles about productivity but I’ve summarised my favourite tips and tricks here:

  1. Fall in love with the process. Setting up a repeatable process enables you to achieve a desired outcome. It helps you focus on your work and what is in your control, rather than relying on processes or decisions that are made by others. 
  2. Every little counts. In line with the repeatable process comes the “compound effect” where everything you do, no matter how small, adds up to the progress you make. If you do a small thing every day you will have done a larger thing at the end of the month. 
  3. Have a step by step. Break down your work into small, actionable pieces that allow you to have clear visibility of what needs to happen next. 
  4. Limit your work in progress. Having less things to do at the same time allow you to focus and finish what you started. 
  5. Focus! Work in cycles of 25 minutes of deep focus and 5 minutes rest, this will allow you to get more things done. 

With the productivity tips in mind, it was time to look at my process.

Where do I start?

I asked myself: how do I work whenever I’m doing a personal project? I realised that I follow a very similar approach as I do with any other design challenge: define the problem, gather requirements, generate ideas, define a solution, and do it! 

While this process seems obvious for designers, I recognised that it might not be obvious for people with different backgrounds. So I figured that it was a good idea to write it down and assess what are the tools I use the most at each stage.

DesignProcess

Design process applied to personal projects and tools used at each stage

Once I was happy with the process, I had to figure out how to make these tasks part of my everyday life.

How do I fit the design process in my day-to-day life?

As most people, I have activities I like to do when I’m not at work, so finding time to squeeze in a personal project can be difficult. In my life, I want to have time to sleep, work, run, do my activities (archery, crafts, any other personal project) and, call me crazy, but I also like to just relax regularly. So, in order to understand where and how I can fit a personal project, I took a look at my daily routine and the devices I interact with at each point of the day. 

On a regular weekday I spend most of my time at work so I mainly interact with my phone and laptop.

DailyActivitiesWeek

Routine and interaction with devices on a weekday

During the weekend, it’s a very different story. I spend much more time at home and therefore I interact more with Alexa and less with the other devices (although the phone remains a strong competitor).

DailyActivities_Weekend

Routine and interaction with devices during the weekend

This is how, after a few hours (and many post it notes) of analysing my behaviour, the triggers and tricks to get things done, my design approach, and my day-to-day routine, The Ideator was born.

Skill_Icon

The IDEATOR

The Ideator is a companion that will help you get through your personal projects and make them come true! If you feel like you have too many ideas, active projects, or you’re not sure how to move forward in your current project, The Ideator will help you sort through your thoughts and organise them into tasks and actions you can achieve in the time you have. 

The Ideator will keep you motivated in an upbeat and fun way, and it will encourage you to give your best on your personal projects.

Who is The Ideator for?

Everyone! Well, everyone who has personal projects or ideas they want to make. Whether it is product or a skill you want to add to your life, The Ideator will guide you through a sustainable process to help you achieve your goals. 

What does it do?

First and foremost, you create your project. Do you want to make a paper flower bouquet? Or maybe you want to develope a skill to solve your shopping lists problem? Whatever it is, you can create it, and you can do it from any device. 

CreateProject_Scenario

Scenario of the happy path to create a project after being reminded of a task and marking it "Completed"

Came up with an idea in the shower? No problem! Just shout: “Alexa, ask The Ideator to add red dahlias to my paper flowers project”. Found an awesome article about voice-powered shopping lists while on the bus? Open the app and add it your project. Just like that! 

Mobile_01

The key to maintaining productivity is to have a clear plan of the steps you need to follow to move forward with your project. The Ideator will help you in the process of breaking down your projects into small tasks that you can squeeze into your busy life. It will help you keep track of the tasks in progress and will guide you to not put too much on your plate. You can add the time it’ll take you to complete a task and The Ideator will create an estimate of the time you’ll take to finish the project.

With The Ideator you can keep track of the articles and information you find on specific projects. Simply add it to your reading list. As the good companion that it is, it’ll find similar articles and podcasts to help you in your journey. Also, if you draw a great idea on a napkin, or find anything interesting in a museum, you can take a picture or a video and add it to your project using the app. 

With the daily updates in your flash briefing, you will always know what you need to do next, what podcasts or articles have been recommended to you or what ideas you’ve had abandoned for a long time. And by the end of the week, you’ll know exactly how much progress you’ve made when you receive your weekly report. 

FlashBriefing_Scenario

Scenario of the Flash Briefing leading to an interaction with the main skill

As The Ideator gets smarter, it will help you create new tasks for projects and remind you of your to-dos based on your calendar and your location. 

It’s all you need to manage your personal projects, in one place! 

How does it work?

When you're ready to create a project, just say the word and The Ideator will be ready to help.

CreateProject

As simple as this.

Echo Show

The Ideator is optimised to work on all your devices, including the Echo show.

Done_EchoShow
ViewProjects_EchoShow

Utterances

The Ideator has been designed to listen to you and understand you in the way you choose to speak. Different utterances are added all the time to ensure you get what you need. 

CreateProject_Utterance

Error handling

The Ideator will always try to help you and improve, even when an error occurs. 

CreateProject_UnhappyPath

Flash Briefing

Finally, with the companion Flash Briefing skill, The Ideator will remind you about your pending tasks and notifications as part of your daily routine.

FlashBrief

Wow, you made it this far!

Thank you for reading! 

Get in touch

hi@dianamundo.com
+44 (0) 7717 590 110

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