Pick who rides in the Middle Seat

• 

  Pick who rides in the Middle Seat

Inspiration

This skill addresses the needs of squabbling kids (and adults), all of whom desperately wish to avoid the dreaded middle seat when riding in the back of a car.

What it does

Alexa will first ask each passenger to pick an animal name. The use of animals is to make the process into a fun game, even though there will be winners and losers. Alexa will then randomly pick and announce the animal/passenger who has to sit in the middle seat, and announce the two winners who get window seats.

How we built it

Voiceflow is used for the interaction model. An Airtable provides random selections of Polly voices and prosody, to add variety.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge is making it fun, but also at the same time not having the process last too long. People are always in a hurry to hit the road, especially parents rushing around trying to get neighborhood errands done.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting the random voices to work. Also, being able to have some animal sound effects when prompting the passengers. The idea of using animals came to mind when we learned many parents are still very wary of Alexa and have privacy concerns related to kids giving their real names to Alexa.

What we learned

For many families, a daily activity as mundane as getting into the car, whether for a quick run to the store, or a long trip, doesn't have to be a big hassle. Parents don't have to play favorites and be the "bad person" choosing who sits where. Instead, Alexa takes on this burden, but makes the process fun by making it kind of a game. Random selection makes the process fair.

To summarize, what we learned is watching for the mundane daily routines that we all go through, and seeing if there are opportunities to make things more fun or to help reduce frustration.

What's next for Pick who rides in the Middle Seat

With the recent release of Alexa Auto, we want to look at what we can do to improve the experience when using this skill in the car. It might mean shortening the overall duration so that parents can hit the road more quickly, and not feel frustrated while waiting for their kids to play the game.

We are considering adding some APL images.

We are also looking for things we can add, such as having Alexa re-pick the next person who has to sit in the front seat. For example have the skill re-pick who has to ride in the middle when the car stops at a gas station, or upon starting the return trip. In these cases perhaps use persistence to avoid the same person being in the middle twice in a row.

Release to additional English-speaking regions. Right now it is US and CA only.

Built With

• airtable
• voiceflow