Give Me A Star

"Alexa, Give Me A Star"

Inspiration:

My 4 year old niece loves competition but hates cleaning her room. The family interacts with Alexa on a daily basis. The 4 year old is developing a relationship with Alexa and is more than comfortable giving voice commands. The parents want to help teach a responsible relationship with chores, tasks, and positive behavior. They also want to build a solid foundation for the appreciation of money and the reward of hardwork.

What it does:

Give Me A Star brings the fun of earning a Star point to the practice of building good and productive self discipline. It encourages the completion of tasks, teaching earning

How we built it:

We build it using the Alexa Skills Kit utilizing persistent memory, multi-modal displays, and innovative features like in-skill feedback.

What we learned:

Voice first development begins with understanding the user's relationship to Alexa and their comfort level with technology in the home. The user experience is less of wireframe design and more of a conversation with a coach, mentor, or assistant. Alexa skills have to enhance the human experience not seek to replace it in order to have and maintain engaged users.

What's next for Give Me A Star:

Beta testing and product enhancement. We plan to refine the user experience to be more conversational and included enhancement packages for other common life-skills.