America's Victoria

Explore the world of Victoria Woodhull; the first woman to run for US President in 1872

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Inspiration

As a documentary producer, I'm passionate about creating Alexa Skills. After developing previous Alexa Skills with an awesome developer, Milton Huang, I was inspired to infuse new life into my PBS featured documentary, "America's Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull." I tagged Milton to work with me on a new version of America's Victoria Alexa Skill to utilize visuals and touch, using Alexa Presentation Language. The goal is to engage and inspire audiences of all ages, especially high school and college students to learn about the fascinating life of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for US President in 1872.

What it does

Users can: "Ask a Question", "Tell me a Quote", "Tell me a Fact."

Users can "Ask a Question" about the life of Victoria Woodhull to explore Victoria’s themes during her lifetime – she was the first woman to run for US President in 1872 – her poverty stricken childhood, politics, her publishing success, her time as a stockbroker, her hard times, and her final days in England.

  • "Ask a Question" Answers/Responses appear in ScrollView that are read using the Speech Synchronization feature. The background archival images are from the documentary, "America's Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull."

  • "Tell me a Quote" from Victoria's fiery speeches can be selected from a horizontal scrolling Sequence that allows either voice selection or via TouchWrapper. Actress Kate Capshaw.performs the voice over of Victoria's own words.

  • "Tell me a Fact" also displays archival images from the documentary with ssml mp3 audio playing in the background. Facts are audio excerpts from the documentary, "America's Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull." "Hear a Fact" excerpts also feature interviews with feminist icon Gloria Steinem, and UCLA Professor Ellen DuBois and Boston University Professor, Robert Fox.

How we built it

The code is written in Python and pulls questions data from CSV files, or links to the mp3s to play. We take advantage of several APL (Alexa Presentation Language).

Challenges we ran into

APL is beta software. The multimodal display authoring tool is slick, but crashes a lot. It was very useful to visualize our layouts, but it is really best to have devices, and we didn't have access to every type of device. One bug/feature is that when you manually attempt to click on a scrollView, audio immediately stops.

There is also a lot of data used in the skill, which means a lot of typos that might still not have been caught. It is hard to review every path!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Implemented a lot of nice little technical touches; CanFullFillIntent, visuals, touch screen, synced voice and scrolling text. Dramatic archival images and quality audio sound.

What we learned

We learned how wonderful APL is and the challenges that come with it in implementing.

What's next for America's Victoria

To add video clips! And, feature an interactive quiz to challenge users about their knowledge of women's political history. Quiz questions would be set up to surprise and delight users spontaneously after a user hears an answer about a Fact, Quote or Question. And, to continue to add content, to "Ask a Question" feature with more questions about Victoria Woodhull and the people who surrounded her.

To also include In-Skill purchase for quiz hints and video clips from America's Victoria documentary.

What the Media Says about Victoria Woodhull

If you spliced the genes of Hillary Clinton, Madonna, Heidi Fleiss and Margaret Thatcher, you might have someone like Victoria Woodhull. - Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Archival Images

All the images used in the "America's Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull" documentary was produced with all the required talent release forms including all archival images. As the producer and director of America's Victoria, I and my company, Zoie Films, Inc. solely own the copyright to this documentary, all images and all digital release formats.

America's Victoria Team!

Victoria Lynn Weston

Victoria works with professionals to produce and develop Alexa Skills. She is also a writer, director and producer of PBS featured documentaries. As Founder of Zoie Films Festival, Victoria utilized innovative streaming technology to launch the first online film festival showcasing films from around the globe. She has been a interviewed by dozens of media outlets including; Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Atlanta PARADE magazine, ABC Talk Radio, and ABC’s NIGHTLINE.

Milton Huang

Milton is a Former psychiatrist and neurofeedback clinician now interested in dynamic computer models of language, emotion, knowledge and behavior. He has worked with clients developing Alexa Skills for their business including his own.

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