Translated from 日本語 • View original Hello, this is Aimi Nakajima, who is in charge of VUI design.
I would like to introduce you to Orbis Corporation because I have been working on smart speakers and VUIs.
The following program was organized over two days.
- Lectures on the theme of smart speakers and IT utilization
- VUI Design Sprint Workshop on Amazon Alexa Skills
About ORBIS
Speaking of Orbis, the "ORBIS u" series, which won the best cosmetics award in many media in 2018, became a hot topic. Recently, the drinkable skin care "ORBIS DEFENCERA" has been attracting attention as Japan's first skin tokuho. Many of you may have seen TV commercials.
1.Lecture on the theme of smart speakers and IT utilization
For both those who have a smart speaker and those who don't, the purpose is to increase their knowledge first, and one day in November, I gave a lecture in Orbis's spacious seminar room.
Since all the targets are ORBIS employees, we talked about the contents of our own research, such as the entry of smart speakers in the cosmetics industry.
There are multiple skills such as healthcare and muscle training, but there are still few entrants in the beauty and cosmetics fields. I feel the potential!
2. VUI Design Sprint Workshop
One day in December, we held a Design Sprint 1-DAY workshop at the ISAO office from morning to evening. Eighteen volunteers from among those who participated in the lecture formed three teams.
This program is a customized design sprint process that repeatedly diffuses and converges ideas into a VUI (voice user interface).
What is a Design Sprint?
Design sprint is a design thinking framework proposed by GV (formerly Google Ventures) in the United States. A team of about 7 people will be formed and in a limited time, such as 3 to 5 days, they will extract issues and conduct user interviews using prototypes.
It is introduced in detail in past articles, so if you are seeing it for the first time, please see here.
What is the goal of the VUI Design Sprint Workshop?
"Each team will create a prototype and verify the concept of ORBIS's smart speaker skill project."
With this goal as the goal, we went from understanding the current situation to coming up with ideas, making plans, VUI design, prototype production, and testing in just one day.
Let's take a look at what kind of process they went through.
Phase 1: Understanding the Current Situation
The participants were mixed teams of people from various departments and roles.
Since there are various channels with customers, after organizing them in the form of a flow diagram, the leaders of each role shared their reactions and status after rebranding with the Orbis You series.
It is an important process to align the level of knowledge to make the workshop effective.
Phase 2: Idea Sketch and Decision
From here, we move on to the phase of venting personal ideas.
While looking at the customer contact points organized in Phase 1, for whom and what is valuable to achieve with smart speakers? While using your brain, you will write out a plan and outline of your skills.
From the silent voting, which is also the best part of the design sprint, each leader finally narrowed it down to one.
Each of the three teams has decided on a skill project from a completely different perspective.
Phase 3: Planning and Design
In the afternoon, we finally moved on to the process of VUI design.
Create a happy path (dialogue of successful examples) of skills, divide into Alexa roles and user roles, test users with human voice⇒ and improve from test results twice.
In the afternoon, the atmosphere of the team warmed up considerably, and it was impressive that everyone was working with a smile.
Phases 4-5: Prototyping and User Testing
Once the happy path is decided, create a prototype that works with the actual Amazon Echo.
This time, we used Invocable (formerly Storyline) to create a non-programming prototype of an Alexa skill.
It's a pretty tight time, but I'm impressed that I managed to make something that moves!
It was around 17:30 in the evening. In the morning stage, I was able to go from zero skill planning to the point where I could talk to Alexa on the actual machine.
Thanks to everyone's very motivated work, it turned out to be a prototype that exceeded my imagination, and it was wonderful!
VUI Design Sprint Workshop Participant Testimonials
After the sprint, we received these comments from everyone. I am very happy that you are using the design sprint process not only in VUI but also in your daily work.
- I was able to think carefully about how to incorporate business issues into smart speakers. - I was able to work to solve problems across departments. - We were excited that our idea was a prototype but was brought to life in a few hours. - I think the goal was clear and the lecture content and work attracted the interest of the students. - There are times when meetings are vague about goals, and it is difficult to decide even if you have a meeting, so I felt that the method of this workshop was efficient.
From prototype to main development!
As for the next development, What! From the output from this workshop, it was decided to actually develop Orbis' Alexa skills!
The design sprint was an ideal sprint for quick decision-making because the concept could be verified in a short period of time, and there were things that would run on the actual Echo machine.
When it is released, ISAO will also let you know!
Later update: Amazon Alexa skill development and VUI design story "Orbis' 'Today's Moisture'" edition
Finally
If you are interested in the VUI Design Sprint Workshop, please contact us at any time.
Before the 1-DAY workshop, we also hold a seminar where you can experience the highlights in about an hour and a half. It is recommended for those who are curious but want to try what they are going to do first.
The next schedule is on connpass, and you can check the state of the seminar on the past blog.
Thank you for reading to the end!