Quilt of Gratitude

Inspiration

As we get older, and I happen to find myself in the target audience for this challenge, we find that one of the strongest and most meaningful ways to connect is through sharing gratitude. Quilt of Gratitude allows for the easy creation of a virtual patch on the quilt to share with someone.

As I built this, I felt it was also important for others to hear patches others have made. This goes beyond the one-to-one sharing of patches, to more of a community of gratitude.

What it does

Quilt of Gratitude lets you create and share tokens of gratitude for others.

You create a patch in the community quilt by choosing from a large list of gratitude inspired quotes. You then personalize that patch by providing your recipient’s first name, and your first name and city. Once you’re happy with the patch, it gives you a location of it on the quilt. This is simply a name of a state along with a four-digit number.

If someone has created a patch for you, they will share its location. This makes it easy to find. Just ask to find a patch, then provide its location.

To get a sense of what others are creating, ask to see a random patch. You’ll also be able to move up or down to hear a few, or all of the patches on Quilt of Gratitude!

How I built it

It turns out, that after a long time concepting on the idea and designing the experience, the building part was easiest. I built the conversation flow in Voiceflow. The skill makes several API calls to databases to provide quotes, store the content of the patches, and maintain the locations of each patch. Hopefully this complexity is hidden to the user, who should have a simple, straightforward experience.

Challenges I ran into

Developing the mental model for the target user was difficult. How can someone truly connect via an Alexa skill? I had several iterations before landing on the idea of a community quilt.

Making it easy to find a patch was also challenging. Ultimately, I created a system inspired by what3words. By using a state name and a simple 4-digit number, I made it easy for someone to share a location. Also, this relies on Alexa’s built-in NLU for US states and 4-digit numbers which makes it much less likely to get errors.

Accomplishments that I’m proud of

Creating a simple way to find a patch within the Quilt of Gratitude without using a long or confusing ID. Hiding the complexity of the skill, yet having a truly simple experience was hard, but rewarding.

What I learned

Gratitude is best, when kept simple.

Also, that spending extra time up front to iterate on the design and concept pays off with much less development time later.

What's next for Quilt of Gratitude

Hopefully many people start creating patches on the Quilt. If so, let's adapt the kinds of patches available, beyond simple quotes. Perhaps videos, voice captures, or the like.

Built With

• apis
• googlesheets
• voiceflow