Reinventing VUI_Joy Of Learning (Master Thesis Dossier)

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REINVENTING THE VOICE USER INTERACTION
PERSONAL RESEARCH PROJECT (PRP)
Tarka Patil
RSP Master in Design Management
Academic Year 2017/2018

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INDEX
CONTENTS PAGE NO.
Abstract 3
Introduction (Context, PESTLE Analysis, Summary of the Problem,
what the project is about and what is the hypothesis to be validated,
Description of the Users)
5 - 12
Research Plan (Market & Trends Research, Methodology, User
samples, User Insights, How Might We)
13 - 33
Functional/Interactive Prototype (Concepts, User Feedback) 34 - 42
Description of the value proposition (Final Solution, Value
Proposition, experience intent, design principles)
43 - 58
Business Case (TAM/SAM/Core Market) 59 - 61
Business Model description (using Business Model canvas) 62
Feasibility and cost assessment 63
Financing Plan: Revenue Plan, Investment (where, how much) 64 - 65
Growth and Development Plan 66
Customer Development Plan 67 - 68
Conclusions 69
Bibliography 71 - 72
Appendix (if necessary) 73
List of tables and ﬁgures 74 - 76
The End 77

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ABSTRACT
This project is about utilisation of the voice technology to minimise the prominent issue of
screen time in the households with children. The research explores the target user’s lifestyle
and current pains and gains in the usage of the technology.
The secondary research will shed a light on the emerging trends in voice technology and future
of parenting and how it will affect the user of tomorrow. The PESTLE Analysis will provide the
macro view of political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal context and trends
concerning the research topic.
The Research Plan methodology will include the research process about identifying the
problems and solution generation. The research will explore why and how screens occupy the
precious time of the family members and create a communication gap between parents and
children. The barriers to the adoption of voice technology will also be identified in this
research. It will then seek to address these concerns by finding opportunities in the user
insights.
The user research will include the key insights generated from the multiple interviews
conducted over a period of a month in the Spanish market.
The prototype shares the process behind the ideation on addressing the real user needs
associated with technology and parenting. There will be description on how the prototype
consisting of Smart speaker and printed storybooks will help reduce the screen time and more
tech-life balance for the parents.
The research document will conclude with final reflections on the challenge, business model,
future development plan and the positive future impact on the user.

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“ Design is not a monologue,
it’s a conversation.”
-

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INTRODUCTION
CONTEXT
We are standing at the interesting intersection of human and technological evolution. It's a
beginning of the INTELLIGENCE REVOLUTION! The future that we used to read in the sci-fi
books and films is here already. In the next 10 years, the fancy and fantasy terms we were
experiencing like ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) and ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) will dramatically
alter many aspects of the humanity. The Consumerization of the AI & IoT is connecting places,
machines and people, blurring the lines of physical and virtual and delivering new consumer
experiences.
In the near future, there is going to be a shift from Human-AI interactions to Human-AI
relationships. However today it seems we are widely engaged with smartphones and computer
screens. Most of us spend more time gazing into our inch-sized screens than into the eyes of our
loved ones. Virtual world devices are setting us on an endless stream of to do's and checklists. In
an attempt to alleviate this, using IoT, companies are creating new connected products to sense
learn and ultimately predict our every need. These new interfaces are transforming how people
will engage with brands through new mediums and interactions.
One of the key technological revolution is that now we can talk to computers in a way that only
appeared in science fiction. Over the past 50 years, we have been on a journey that has
repeatedly simplified our modes of interaction, from keyboards to mouse clicks and then touch.
Now we return to the most natural and intuitive form of interaction - voice and natural speech.
“For most of our cultural evolution as a species, humans have transmitted knowledge and ideas from
one generation to another through oral tradition - the voice is therefore perhaps the most innate and
intuitive way for us to communicate.”
- Nick Ryan, composer, sound designer, artist and audio specialist (Perry, 71)

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THE VOICE TECHNOLOGY
This voice technology is sweeping the world and half the world will be talking to the the voice
assistants soon(Olson, 71). The rise in the popularity of Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and
Cortana is the proof that the opportunity is ripe for the businesses to get immersed in the voice
activated world. The voice technology will not only just redeﬁne how we live our lives, but will
also bring dramatic change to the traditional customer experience.
VOICE WILL FREE US UP TO INTERACT BETTER WITH THE WORLD AROUND US.
This makes it the most exciting humane technology. This could be the key to liberating users
from the omnipresent screen. With no need for typing and swiping, imagine how heads will
shift their focus upwards away from the screen. Voice will allow us to get reacquainted with the
real world around us which we ignored due to constant attention from our screens.

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PESTLE ANALYSIS
POLITICAL
For decades, the saying "let others invent” based on a famous quote by the Spanish author
Miguel de Unamuno ("Que inventen ellos") was Spain's motto and made the country a tourism
world champion during the Franco dictatorship. Now, Spain is riding the wave of a technology
revolution.
Seventy-five percent of the Spanish population already has a high-speed fibre optic connection,
while Germany is at a relatively tiny 5 percent (Müller, 71). This trend started with the high
mobile phone use among Spaniards, which has triggered Spanish banks to become early
investors in Fintech and virtual currencies.
Spain boasts almost 11 connections to every 100 inhabitants, in Germany it is close to one
(Müller, 71). The ever-expanding digitisation is driving the smart city revolution as well. This
paves the firm ground for the entry of voice technology in this country. The recent GDPR laws
also provide the citizens with the data privacy and security rights that could encourage the
market demand for voice technology based devices.
ECONOMICAL
Despite the biggest available voice services in Spain working better in English than Spanish,
voice technology has been embraced strongly in the country. (“Sher.pa”, 71). The Spanish love
of convenience, coupled to a relatively lax attitude regarding online privacy, has driven
adoption. Global smart speaker shipments rose 278 percent since last year in the first quarter of
2018, indicating voice-enabled devices are more than a trend (Lacy,71).
We are clearly heading towards to a time in the not too distant future when voice becomes a
standard mode of technology interaction alongside established approaches like keyboard,
mouse and touchscreen. According to the latest quarterly research from Strategy Analytics,
global smart speaker shipments reached 9.2 million units in Q1 2018 (“Global smart speaker…”,
71).
The growth of this market can be attributed to rapid proliferation of multifunctional devices,
growing trend of personalisation, rising disposable income, and increasing number of smart
homes. However, issues related to connectivity range, compatibility, and power restrain the
growth of the smart speaker market.
Spain is the next big market, as Alexa and Google home are adding Spanish language to its
interface and are making it available to global Spanish market in the coming years. The
introduction of Spanish is significant because over half a billion people speak Spanish as either
a first or second language. Any company that want to compete globally in the voice assistant or
smart speaker market, it is imperative that they must have a Spanish-language offering.

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SOCIAL
The smart speakers are gaining popularity as the new must have home devices in Spanish
households. The voice technology is definitely going to make it big in Spain considering that
the smart speakers stand out in the consumer market for their aspect of product appreciating
over time compared to the past models in which products (like computers and phones) only
depreciated after purchase.
Both Amazon and Google offer open up development to the broader ecosystem for
manufacturers, brands, and developers to create new apps, new features, and integrations all
the time. This open and expanding ecosystem doesn’t just create a better out-of-the-box
experience, it also extends the range of potential use cases, users, and value over time. Some
technologies help enable or mobilise new segments of people. While this is great for adoption
and brand marketers, in certain cases it can also enhance people’s lives.
Parenting today isn’t like how it was 50 years ago. The nature of families have altered and the
families are now more diverse, fluid and complex than before. Today, the gender roles are
changing and there is almost an equal responsibility that fathers take in parenting. Most of the
parents feel under pressure of being the ideal parent. Most of the parents find technology
effective in facilitating them with better parenting. Technology is also changing the way one
parents, parents are consciously putting the emotional needs of the child at a forefront over any
functional needs.
TECHNOLOGICAL
Although smart speakers have improved the user experience in the smart home, challenges
remain on the technology side. No one wants to have multiple different apps for multiple
different devices; no one wants to be system administrators for their homes.
There are additional challenges around inter-operability. Consumers don’t want to be limited in
to using single brands or manufacturers, and especially in the home. Although both Amazon
and Google offer an impressive array of service and product integrations through their Skills
and Actions SDKs respectively, they draw a line when it comes to each other.
Smart speakers mark an exciting technological shift, most notably in accelerating voice as a
mainstream human-machine interface. The millennial generation cannot be engaged without
good user interaction. It has also become the key to building customer loyalty.

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LEGAL
Legal compliance is important for businesses globally. In the European market, both providers
and users of speech technology have good reason to read the fine print and understand the
implications of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR,) which took
effect on May 25, 2018. Since GDPR requires an opt-in customer consent before companies can
collect, process, or store a consumer’s Personal Information (PI) data, and expands the
traditional definition of PI to include a user’s location, health and genetic data, sexual
orientation, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or political opinions, one could ask: what’s more
personal than the sound of someone’s voice?
The GDPR’s guiding principles of privacy protection and data minimisation mean that
companies can only collect what they absolutely need to conduct their business, and consumers
can request that companies show them the data it has saved about them. Under the GDPR’s
“right to be forgotten,” consumers can also request that customers delete all their PI (Martin, 71).
While the regulation came from the EU, any entity that collects, stores, and/or processes PI for
citizens of the EU is subject to GDPR, wherever they’re based.
ENVIRONMENTAL
Sustainability is also a very important concern for the businesses worldwide. Even the e-
retailers have to focus on several areas like packaging and waste reduction to do business
sustainably. Amazon has invested a lot in CSR and sustainability.
It's also important to engage in sustainable packaging, e-waste reduction, and e-waste
management. Apart from that it is also important to invest in engaging the community in
sustainability projects. The mobiles have added a lot to the e-waste in the past few years, voice
technology companies need to consider the effects of the e-waste generated by smart speakers
in the future and start working towards the waste management of the same from the beginning.

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SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM
From the invention of the first man-made fire to the planned settlements on the Mars, we have
come a long way. Science is the best weapon we have, with which we created civilisations,
infused the atoms to recreate the big bang of the past, cured cancer and built a parallel world of
machines. We have been constantly making progress and competing with nature to create
alternatives for the natural beings. We should be proud of ourselves but somewhere along the
way, we have started to forget what it means to be a human - the very essence of feeling truly
alive.
We are getting so engrossed in the technology that we are slowly being pulled away from a
sense of who we are and what really matters to us. It's easy to get seduced by technology
because it makes everything so easy. Why go out to meet new people when you can just make
an account on dating sites and meet thousands more people with the click of a finger? Why join
any social clubs and organisations to make real friends when you can spend hours on social
media websites? How many of us can get through a meal without someone’s cell phone
ringing? How many people are more excited about getting the new iPhone versus spending
quality time with family and friends? Are we really more connected to each other or more
alone?
Having said that, I am a true lover of the technology and use plenty of it. I am not saying
technology is bad, but what concerns me the most is how it's being utilised today. In the first
place the technology made it possible for us to stay in contact with other human beings.
We have access to the entire world in unique way which our parents and grandparents never
did. However, we must remember that as we connect more with the virtual world as the
technology advances, our connection to the real world cannot diminish.
These thoughts made me relook at the technology in a new way. I decided to find a way to make
this technology disappear so that people can connect to each other and enjoy the power of
human communication and interaction. I wanted to find a way to use the technology to hide
itself and I came across the world of voice technology which has a power to become an invisible
technology and still serve our needs. Users frequently complain about the smartphone and how
it has made people less sociable. Use of voice technology can liberate people from their screens
through voice interactions in the physical world. The ideal approach would be to find the real
user needs in terms of voice user interface (VUI) by using human-centric approach. I would like
to explore what are the real user needs towards the VUI based devices.

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SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM
My journey started with understanding the voice user interface and I found out that phones
and computers with screens have more power over speakers, because they engage two of our
most important senses – eyes and ears. Unlike screens, in the parallel world of Voice UI, one can
reconnect with the real world and still can get advantages of the other world. It made me think
that voice has a potential to make real more appealing and desirable. The voice technology isn’t
serving these real human needs yet, it is only being used for basic tasks such as setting an alarm
or check the weather. I decided to explore what is causing the friction in adoption of voice
technology in users.
I strongly believe that there is an urgent need of educating the future generation about their
way around the technology, so that they don’t get submerged in the superficial world of
technology. Thus, I focused on the households with children as my target user, where parents
and children become two actors of the ecosystem for me to explore for my research area.
I began my work with the below question:
What are the new behaviours/shifts/scenarios/use cases
that will be triggered by the voice technology?
This helped me to come up with a hypothesis about my target users.
Hypothesis:
The users (Families with children) today do not use Voice interface to its full potential because
they face problems with the limited interactions it provides. They also do not have the required
knowledge or training in order to use the voice devices properly. Thus, finding a way to get
people to use VUI devices without visual input (such as a screen) for the everyday tasks is the
real challenge.
After extensive one to one interviews with many parents, I realised that the real problem was
not the technological limitations of the Voice UI devices or lack of knowledge of the technology,
but it was about the increasing gaps between parents and children due to excessive time
consumption around screens of the devices. Most of the parents faced difficulties in creating a
successful tech-life balance while serving the needs of children. There were emotions like
frustrations, fear, anger, sarcasm, concern and care while talking about their children’s signs of /
growing screen-addiction.

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DESCRIPTION OF THE USERS
Families:
1, Young parents (Age group 30 - 45 yrs old)
• Active smartphone users with voice assistants on their phones.
• Users who own and use smart speakers with voice assistant at home.
2. Kids (Age group 3-8 yrs old)
• Kids whose parents own and use smartphones or smart speakers at home.

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RESEARCH PLAN
MARKET RESEARCH
Voice Landscape Worldwide
The Voice technology has already entered the smartphones and households and is gaining
momentum. There are various platforms and devices that operate in this landscape and more
advancement of this technology is on way.
OK Google: is the voice command used to activate
Google Assistant on your devices. One can ask Google
pretty much anything one likes. It can set alarms, make
calls and send texts, schedule meetings and more on
one’s device. It also works as a hub for home
automation. It works on the smart speakers from
Google known as Google home and Google Mini.
Amazon Echo/Alexa: Wireless speaker and voice
command device capable of voice interaction, music
playback, making to-do lists, set alarms, stream
podcasts, play audiobooks, provide weather, traﬃc and
other real time information. It can also control several
smart devices. In functionality, it does almost the same
tasks as that of a google assistant.
Siri (Apple): Intelligent personal assistant and
knowledge navigator - uses a natural language user
interface to answer questions, make recommendations,
and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of
web services. It is the voice behind Apple’s HomePod.

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MARKET RESEARCH
Voice Landscape in Spain
The Spanish love of convenience, coupled to a relatively lax attitude regarding online privacy,
has driven adoption of voice technology. There are growing users for voice technology and
identifying this trend, Some Spanish players are also entering the market.
Sher.pa: Bilbao based Sherpa is a voice activated personal assistant app for android that is
popular in Spain and Spanish speaking countries. The focus of the latest technology is on the
personalisation and learning from the user’s preferences and habits. Artiﬁcial Intelligence
algorithms predict the kind of information users might want, ranging from the scores of
favourite sports teams to reminders to take an umbrella when rain is forecast (“Sher.pa”, 71).
Trending Innovation
AlterEgo: AlterEgo is a closed-loop, non-invasive, wearable system that allows humans to
converse in high-bandwidth natural language with artiﬁcial intelligence assistants without
opening their mouth, and without externally observable movements. It works simply by
vocalising internally. The device has made it possible to control your gadget without even
moving your lips. It’s a prototype device called AlterEgo developed by MIT Media Lab graduate
student Arnav Kapur (“AlterEgo” 71).
He envisions this device which can be used in a way that is less demanding of user’s attention
than tapping and swiping on a smartphone and more intimate (and quiet) than shouting
commands at Alexa like devices. He imagines it being helpful for, say, calling an Uber, or
making it easier for people with speech impediments and voice disorders to communicate.

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TRENDS RESEARCH
MARKET ALTERNATIVES FOR SCREEN-TIME REDUCTION
Phones for Children
Many adults will agree that giving their a child a phone is also part and parcel of being a
responsible parent in 2018. Stephen Balkam, the CEO of the tech-industry backed nonprofit
Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) says that in connected households (i.e. households that
have more than three devices), kids get their first tablet when they are 5.5 years old, and their
first phone at the age of 7. This tech-trend following is not having a good impact on the
children’s development.
Many parents are concerned about the negative outcomes of the exposure to social media or
inappropriate content on the internet and considering this, many companies started designing
phone with a child in mind. KidiBuzz mobile or Kurio Android smartphone are created specially
for Children with features like child safe browsers with safety and usage limit for the screen
time. Apple and Google also rolled out features like screen time and Google Family Link to help
parents monitor their children’s screen time. These days, many parents are “putting tech in kids’
hands as soon as they can hold them,” declares Dr. Jim Taylor, author of the book Raising
Generation Tech. (Dickson, 71).
Illustration (Joe, 71)

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TRENDS RESEARCH
MARKET ALTERNATIVES FOR SCREEN-TIME REDUCTION
Read Along by Disney
Disney and Random House have teamed up with Google to add an interactive soundtrack to
their Little Golden Books series of children’s books. Owners of a Google Home smart speaker
can now ask the device to “read along with Disney” to hear music and sound eﬀects for selected
books of the series. In this feature, Google’s smart speaker listens to a parent or child reading
the book out loud, and then adds sound eﬀects, or changes the music, matching the plot of the
story. The idea is interesting, and adds another way a smart speaker can augment existing
family activities. (Roettgers, 71)
Lego has launched an interactive Alexa skill that has voice-guided instructions and it tells
stories called as Duplo Stories. The skill gives parents and kids a selection of stories with audio
prompts that guide physical play. Duplo Stories involve getting participants to build things with
the brick pieces as they go through the story. There are multiple scenarios to choose from,
involving animals and transportation. One story involves a plane going on vacation. The plane
will go to a warm or cold place, depending on what you choose to pack. Lego says the stories are
designed to develop skills including social and cognitive skills, roleplaying, color recognition,
choosing directions, and identifying characters (Ong, 71).

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TRENDS PREDICTION
VOICE IS TAKING OVER!
*ComScore forecasts that half of all searches will be voice
searches by 2020. (Olson, 71)
*By 2021 Ovum predicts that there will be more digital
assistants than humans on the planet. (De Renesse, 71)

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MARKET RESEARCH
Descriptive Value Web
Most of the AI platforms for VUI have very similar value web. There is a user who speaks
commands/questions to a device. This device will record the audio and stream it to an
intermediate service. The intermediary service will recognise this as an initial request and send
the audio to the speech-to-text service. The speech-to-text service converts the audio to text and
returns text to the intermediary service. The intermediary service then sends the text to the text-
to-Intent/Action component. This component is responsible for ﬁguring out what the user
wants to do. Usually AI Assistants will have phrases which trigger named intents. For example,
an application can look for the phrase “What’s the weather in {Barcelona} {Spain}” to trigger a
get_weather intent (Kang, 72).
See below the reference ecosystem of the Alexa services.
Speech To Text
Text to Action/intent
developer.amazon.com
Web Service
3rd Party
Web Service
User
Speech
Alexa
Service
Spoken
Response
Streamed
wav or mp3
Alexa
Response
Speech
Text
Text
Intent & Slot
Values
Alexa Speech and/
or Card response
Alexa Card
Response
Intent & Slot
Values
Internet
Amazon

Alexa

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METHODOLOGY
The methodology for the user research started with identifying the target users and ﬁnding the
households with children who also own a smart speaker. Interviews were conducted with many
parents with children of age-group ranging from 1 year old child to a 14 years old. The selected
users were also diverse in terms of ethnicity which, included Spanish people as well as expats
living in Barcelona.
Along with users, some interviews were also conducted with technology and design experts and
some insights were gathered from the voice technology related podcasts, webinars, online
articles and reports.
Interviews
The format of the interviews was simple and included one to one conversation rather than a
question-answer format. Users were asked to describe their daily routines, their usage of
technology in everyday tasks, and their parenting ritual with their children. The interviews
mostly took place in the user’s homes in presence of their kids and the smart speaker devices so
they could demonstrate their current interaction with their speakers.

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METHODOLOGY
Users included three types of parents like tech savvy, tech-balancers and tech-escapers.
TECH-SAVVY
These Parents that are early adopters of new technology and looked at it positively. They
ignored the negative effects of it (pretended to know everything, but didn’t make a big deal of it)
and allowed their child to use screen-based devices to provide them with knowledge. They also
confirmed that they themselves were somewhat addicted to their screens and it has benefitted
them most of the time to grasp an enormous amount of information quickly so they don’t think
there is an alternatives to the screens for their children to operate in this world.
TECH-BALANCERS
These parents are well aware of the negative impacts of the screens and devices in their own as
well as their child’s life. They would try their best to reduce screen-time for themselves and for
their child, but were not always successful and would eventually fall back into the same routine.
They tried a few alternatives but did not succeed in reducing tech-time.
TECH-ESCAPERS
These parents are the extreme users who understand the grave effects of the screen usage in
child’s development and take extreme measures to avoid the usage of screens. These parents
have strict rules about minimum screen-time usage for their child and follow the same for
themselves. But feel frustrated when they go out with other friends and see their children
addicted to screens. They fear that even if they avoid screen for their child but when the child
goes out child will have fascination towards screens and may demand for it in future.

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METHODOLOGY
After the completion of all the interviews, all the information was organised together on the
post-its and then all of them were categorised in the below categories:
Likes: What users like about the voice technology or technology that’s intended for children?
Needs: What are the real needs of parents from the technology to provide for their children’s
development? Frustrations: What creates frustrations around technology and parenting?
Wishes: What is the ideal scenarios or solutions they can envision or desire in order to have a
healthy family and good parenting? Fears: What are the fears they have around technology and
parenting? Observations: of the user behaviours at home around the smart speakers and their
children. Teachings: What do parents want to teach their children? Togetherness: What brings
the family together? Expert Views: Sourced through voice technology related podcasts,
webinars, online articles and reports.
EXPERT VIEWS
FEARS
LIKES FRUSTRATIONS
WISHES
OBSERVATIONS NEEDS
TEACHINGS
TOGETHERNESS
DESIGN NEEDS

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USER SAMPLES
PARENTS
The role of parents is the most signiﬁcant one in the child’s development. These parents are
power users of the new technology, because they are the ones who multitasks to get the tasks
done at home. For them, daily routines matter the most. They have to take care of their own
lives as well as their family’s well being. They have to invest their energy at their workplace, and
at home for fun and function. For them, everything is at the same level of importance and its
their responsibility to juggle between their tasks to provide best for their family.
PARENTS
POWER USERS
DAILY
ROUTINES
MATTERS
FAMILY
TIME
FUN FUNCTION
MULTITASKERS
VUI

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USER SAMPLES
CHILDREN
What one can understand from the insights is that the most important thing for children while
growing up is ‘to play’ and ‘to imagine’. Another interesting aspect that came across was that
they would get involved in pretend play in the early years (3 to 6) of their life, where they would
talk to an imaginary friend by pretending to be using anything around them for
communication. Imitating elders or visuals or sounds is their favourite activity and that’s how
they learn a new skill or a language. Curiosity is at the highest peak during childhood and they
always are eager to ask or touch about anything that’s in their cone of vision. Parents also shared
that their children are very hungry for attention all the time, that’s where parents have to choose
their priorities and make time for their children. Children also are very sensorial in terms of
visual, tactile and auditory senses.
KIDS
IMAGINE
PLAY IMITATE
CURIOUS
PRETEND PLAY
LEARNER
ATTENTION HUNGRY
SENSORIAL
(VISUAL, AUDIO-STIMULATED, TACTILE)

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USER SAMPLES
LIKES:
When asked about their likes, the users mentioned that listening to audiobooks make them feel
productive and stimulated and they don’t mind that because they are otherwise all the time
attending to their thoughts so it doesn’t act as a problem. The advantage of Voice UI for parents
is that it makes everything hands-free, giving them opportunities to multitask, to change the
diapers, feed the child, cook the food or turn on the lights while walking in with the stroller into
the house. The users of Voice UI like that the smart speakers entertain their children and feed
their curiosity. It works magic when it is about a diﬃcult and unimaginable questions that
children can ask sometimes to the parents and parents aren’t the knowledgeable ones to answer
that.
AUDIO BOOKS: FEEL PRODUCTIVE & STIMULATED
VUI FOR PARENTS: HANDS-FREE
(GOOD FOR BUSY-HANDED PEOPLE)
VUI FOR FAMILY: OPENS NEW POSSIBILITIES
OF ENTERTAINMENT
VUI FOR KIDS: CURISOCITY IS FULFILLED

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USER SAMPLES
NEEDS:
Users shared their expectations from the technology to serve them on an everyday tasks. The
major responsibility that parents have is the well-being of the child and for that they need to
provide emotional support. Since the birth of the new born baby till it becomes less dependent,
it is a unique or special moment for parents. They have to deal with the growing requirements of
the child. One of the main needs is to be able to stay ‘Present’ in the moment and not be online
(distracted) so that parents can focus on their child, but they face many technology-life balance
issues. Even if they disconnect for their child, the child demand for the screen in order to ﬁnish
their food or stop crying. The children are very much engaged by visual and auditory senses, so
they get fascinated by the devices with screens. They mentioned that, to entertain their child
they would deﬁnitely need something for them to see and listen to but it should not be as
intrusive as the screens.
KNOWLEDGE
CONSUMPTION
TECH-LIFE
BALANCE
USER
(PARENTS & KIDS)
EYES EARS

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USER SAMPLES
FRUSTATIONS:
All the users shared experiences of being a parent. They find it frustrating and difficult to
explain the harms of screen-addiction to their child. They realise as much as the child gets
involved into the screen, it starts acting bitter and disconnected from the outside world. Some
parents complained that they avoid screens while around their child but when they go out with
other friends and their children, it becomes difficult to avoid screens. Social pressure of screen
related activities also bind parents into buying the devices for their child.
FEARS:
Users seemed very worried about the development or signs of screen-addiction in their child.
They pretended that little usage of the screen won’t harm much, but they did fear that their
child may get trapped into it or become screen-o-holic one day.
WISHES:
Intuition or prediction is something everyone expected from the technology around them. Also,
they shared that they enjoy the bedtime story time where they can be together and have one to
one session. The one thing that was important for everyone was to have a technology providing
pure form of creativity for their kids to grow. Users also shared their love for books and how
they would use books to find solutions as a child and not be distracted by phones, so they wish
their children too find something tangible and tactile as books for them to interact with for
knowledge consumption.
TOGETHERNESS:
When asked about what brings the family together, most of the users mentioned food and
outdoor activities. Most of the users mentioned that books or maps near the dining table also
add joy to their interaction and provides them with a common platform to play around or
discuss. Users also mentioned that story-telling time before bedtime is the most personal time
they share to bond with their children and consider it to be valuable for the child’s upbringing.
TEACHING:
About the teaching or the knowledge that parents want to pass down to their children, it came
across that it differs from age to age. So, when the baby is a newborn, they train them to
understand the difference between day and night. When the child starts talking, then language
learning and other vocabulary skills is what they focus on. When child becomes conscious of
‘self’, they begin teaching about nature, surroundings, history, humans body through music and
play. Some parents go for a creativity class like painting, sports with their child so that they
share a new common activity together. One user mentioned that instead of reading traditional
stories, he invents stories with his child and teaches him values and character building.

27
USER SAMPLES
OBSERVATIONS:
The users with smart speakers at home were training two children, one was their own child and
the other was the smart speaker (user behaviour training), both of whom parents would call out
by name/ wake word(in case of Alexa) and sometimes they would get confused or jumble up the
names. The other noticeable thing was that children with smart speakers at home were much
sensitive to the audio from it and showed fascination towards it, without being statuary at one
place. Children would ask their parents to give commands for the speakers, since they weren’t
able to activate it as yet and the ones who could speak, would ask stupidest questions and have
long conversations with their devices. Children also involved in pretend play through VUI, so in
case of one family, their two young daughters dressed up and played music on the speaker and
danced like a little diva to perform.
EXPERT VIEWS:
We are entering an era of Calm Technology where people can easily use technology without being taxed
to learn it.
- Mark Weiser. (Sim, 72)
From various expert interviews and writings gathered, voice came across as a tool for
multitasking which combines fun and function for the families. Voice is universal and voice
triggers action! Many of the users contradicted themselves by saying that they don’t want to
have long loop conversations with their devices, but they expect human-like conversations.
Through voice UI, kids would listen, imitate and remember better. With Voice UI, Information
Architecture makes sense again. There is no need for digital interfaces, where sound travels.
With this parallel world of VUI, one can reconnect with the real world while still getting the
added advantage of the VUI world. Users tend to associate some sort of agentivity to the VUI.
DESIGN NEEDS:
• Empathy is more important with such voice interfaces to predict the user behaviour.
• For children a good hook would be an element of playfulness.
• It would be extremely important to have different modes of interaction that a device can
automatically switch as per the user such as children mode, parent mode or family mode.
• Ideate on how it can be scaled up for usage in older generations, since voice is the natural way
of interaction for older people and they are not used to new technology, so it removes the
adoption barrier for them.

28
USER SAMPLES
Placement of the Device
During all the user interviews, there was a pattern for the placement of the device in the house -
it was always in the living-cum-dining area mostly close to the dining table.
One parent, who doesn’t have any smart speaker at home, mentioned that as a child he had
encyclopaedia like books at their dining tables, and if they come across any question they would
immediately open the books and ﬁnd the answers. Now, the father avoids keeping a phone on
the dining table, to avoid any type of screen interaction. This father wishes to do the same
activity but without involvement of the phone screen and not having to keep books around.
While other family which owns a google home speaker, talked about how having the google
home speaker near the dining table helps them bond better together.
The google speaker in this case is used as a tool to add value to the conversations that happen
around the dinner table. In this case, this family doesn’t speak good english, but tries to ask
questions in english about what is the capital of country in the map and they ﬁnd answers.
In the image below, one can see the google home speaker at the corner bookshelf and a map
placed next to it on the wall.
See below the placement of Google home device in the kitchen/Dining area
Books placed next to the device
Map on the wall that acts as a Conversation Starter

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USER SAMPLES
Teaching Values to the Children
Lot of parents face frustrations around teaching good values to their kids. They are aware of the
addiction that can ruin their child’s mental as well as physical health, but do not know
alternatives to solve the issue.
One of the user is a parent to 14 years old twins. She faced frustrations to make her kids
understand why screen addiction is bad and thus tries to explain them the same thing using
diﬀerent experiments. One experiment she did was to make her child realise how much time he
spends on the screen watching ‘not so useful’ content. She made her child watch an educational
video on youtube for the same amount of time that he would watch any of his entertaining
videos. There was no change in the attitude but it did aﬀect her child’s perception of the time,
which made him feel conscious of his time spent on screens.
She also did another experiment, where she made a drawing (see image below) where she
created a ‘PYRAMID OF PRIORITIES’ for her children. The pyramid starts with the
foundation of ‘Love & Respect’ for others around you and once, you learn the values and follow
the same in your life, then you move to the next level, which is about an ORDER where its
about learning & reading to improve your knowledge, which is not necessarily studies. And
once, you have achieved this level, then you go to the top - which is your ‘FREE TIME’ or ‘ME
TIME’!, where you are free to do whatever you want. To have that, one must pass all the bottom
levels. She has this drawing stuck on the fridge all the time and hopes that her children follow
it.
Pyramid of Priorities: starting with love and respect to achieve the free time.

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USER INSIGHTS
Insight 1
When the father is busy on the computer, his son comes close to him and asks for his attention,
but due to work, he is not able to give him attention. Then his son grabs some musical
instruments and sits next to the father to play and distract him. The father doesn’t like working
on a screen in front of him, but he has no alternative sometimes.
He knows that his child is fascinated by the screen and wants to touch tv, computer or phone
screens when they are not around, so he fears that he might get addicted to screen.
Thus, he thinks it would be nice to have something that his son could be accompanied with
some music/sound effects so that he can play his instruments but also gets a guidance and
background music like a jamming session to learn on his own.
Insight 2
When this father goes for lunches with friends, other parents place a screen for their children
for eating, but he doesn't allow the phones on the dining table.
He feels that his child may become screen-o-holic, when he sees that his child is fascinated by
other children and their screen, but he is really strict about it, but feels that there should be a
middle point to this.
Insight 3
Father wants to teach him english, but no-one speaks english in the surrounding, so the father
faces difficult time to continue the conversations in English.
He uses a translator app on his phone, so he has to keep his phone around for the same, but he
hates carrying phone when he is with his child. He wishes if there was an easy way to have this
translation done so that he could continue learning himself and then teaching his child.
Insight 4
Father is using a technique to invent stories at night with the child, because a child expert told
him that inventing new stories is good for the creative growth of the children, so he constructs a
story with characters with random names and draws it together with his child.
But sometimes it's difficult to explain him something like sound of an elephant or music from a
guitar and he avoids using phone screen to show him those things, so he wishes if there was
something that could accompany the story with a sound effect to create a dramatic and
engaging experience and child also learns about it without having to interact with the screen
and enjoying the moment together.

31
USER INSIGHTS
Insight 5
A couple had a presentation from police at the schools, that the screens are bad for children and
they mentioned that they pretended to know it all that but they find it really difficult to not let
children use the screen. They try to keep a time limit and restriction on usage but they feel that
their children are getting trapped inside these screens.
And when they ask their son to stop playing video games, he gets really annoyed and his
behaviour turns bad, so there are many emotions along with frustration that they face. They
want to find a good way to make their children realise that this screen/game addiction makes
their behaviour bad and unpleasant.
Insight 6
Another couple lives outside of Barcelona in a small town and most of the children in the
neighbourhood go out to play and also invite their children to join them, but their children
don’t like to go out. They are just playing inside the homes and on their screens, and their son
has a game on on the tv screen and has computer screen on for Skype call with other game
players. They have a loud conversations while playing and it takes up an audio space of the,
entire house, which is really annoying to the mother.
Mother wishes that her child could reduce spending time on the screens and the audio space of
the house can be used for everyone’s benefit.
Insight 7
One mother mentions that she always notices that there are many child development solutions
and advices for the children of age-group 0-10 and teenage age group pf 17-18, but no one talks
about the pre-teens age group 10-15, which she thinks is a really difficult time for the parents.
During this age group, parents have difficult conversations with their children and to solve this
problem she is reading a book called ‘How to talk to a child to make him listen and how to listen
to a child to make him talk’. She is trying this but its really difficult to follow it for her, so she
wishes if there was an easier way to make this conversation better.

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FORMATION THE OF HOW MIGHT WE
After the end of the interviews, and analysing the insights, I came up with multiple options for
the problem statement as below:
Option 1:
How Might We improve the user experience for families with children in using VUI at home
for everyday tasks/jobs to be done so that they are less dependent on the screens?
Option 2:
How Might We improve the user experience for families with children in using VUI at home so
that parents & children spend less time with their phone and more time with each other?
Option 3:
How Might We use the power of Voice UI to teach a new language to everyone in the family
with children so that everyone spends less time on their phone/screens and more time
together?
Option 4:
How Might We use Voice UI to celebrate culture and diversity by introducing children and
parents to the world of new languages and help families to maintain meaningful connection
amongst themselves?
Option 5:
How Might We use Voice UI to become a tool for storytelling to create an engaging experience
without hampering imagination & creativity for children and parents so that they can stay
away from the screens.
Option 6:
How Might we minimise the screen time for families with children using Voice UI and
storybooks to create an engaging experience of Story-time/Story-telling?

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FORMATION OF HOW MIGHT WE
Finally, after analysing the user insights in depth, I realised bedtime story-time as well as dining
time are the two scenarios where parents and children usually come together, thus in order to
avoid the screens in these two scenarios, I reframed the problem statement as:
How Might we minimise the screen time for families with
children using Voice UI and storybooks to create an
engaging experience of Story-time/Story-telling?

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PROTOTYPE
PRODUCT/SERVICE CONCEPT
Research says, "The more a child talks and hears in the first 5 years of his life, the stronger his
verbal skills are later in life!". The aim of the solution should be to provide a platform for every
child and parents to talk, listen and have improved conversations.”
Taking this in mind, I ideated a solution.
Problem:
Difficulty in achieving a Tech-Life Balance -> major concern: Screen-addiction in children
From my research, I understood that most of the parents today face issues with tech-life
balance. They want their children to not get addicted to the screens (mobile/tablets/ iPads,
computer, etc.), but due to social pressure or due to lack of the alternatives, they end up
providing their child with it. Another insight was that the story-telling/reading is the common
activity in all the families with children. Thus, I framed my challenge as per below:
'How Might we minimise the screen time for families with children using Voice UI
and storybooks to create an engaging experience of Story-time/Story-telling?’
Solution:
A unique storybook + Smart speaker's Story-reader application
• My solution consists of a unique storybook which has partial stories because some lines are
blank or hidden in the book. When you start reading the stories with the smart speaker, the
complete story is revealed through the audio.
• Each story-session begins with the speaker saying, “ Once Upon a time…” and when it ends,
it's the user’s (in this case - the child’s) turn to read the line from the book.
• The child starts reading these lines from the book after which the next hidden lines are
spoken by the smart speaker. The child listens to the smart speaker’s narration and when it
finishes its line, the child is directed to read out the next line. This pattern of two-way
dialogues keeps the child alert and engaged to the story.
• Meanwhile, the speaker provides background sound effects to enhance the sensory
experience of each scene in the story.

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FUNCTIONAL/INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
I created two prototypes to test my concept.
1. A concept storybook:
I have created a concept storybook which will be a printed physical book that the children and
their parents will hold in their hands and read with the smart speaker.
Link for the storybook concept below:
https://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/61564865/5bf2feb416c38
In this book, one needs to read aloud the text highlighted in black when it's your turn to read
and when its blank spaces, (grey coloured text) the speaker will read it. When the speaker's part
is over, you will be reading the next part of the written story.

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A concept storybook: LAYOUT
(Hidden Text + Illustration and entire text on the following pages).

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A concept storybook: LAYOUT
(Hidden Text + Illustration and entire text on the following pages).

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2. User Interaction Demo Video:
The Video is an explanatory video of how the user interaction would be demonstrated. For this,
I recorded the conversation in my own voice. There is a reading score that the device generates
if your child is reading the story and helps him get better at pronunciation. Parents can also
receive a notiﬁcation about the reading score of their child after the story-session.

39
There is a ﬂow of conversation design that I worked on to make sure there is a right output
when particular text is read. There is a dialogue box for what user says on the right and google’s
output on the left box as seen below.
Link to view the demo interaction:
https://youtu.be/Y946_5U-0_I

40
Below is the dialogue ﬂow diagram of the interaction, opening interaction is magniﬁed on the
right hand side.

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USER FEEDBACK
Wishes:
• Testing a virtual book that would be printed in real case made it a difficult format for
visualising and understanding how it would work in physical format.
• In the demo video the language being used is quite sophisticated and it is unlikely that
children of a certain age be able to construct paragraphs with 2-3 sentences, so the language
and tone of voice needs to be age-appropriate.
• Device should provide rich and timely feedback like parents do. Speaker should know itself
when it’s time to move on to next paragraph.
• Child learns through echoing needs to hear it first to know how to pronounce a new word,
how would that happen? Thus, parents would be needed to sit along with the child, but
there could be possibility of doing it without having a parent sitting next to the child.
• Children need something more in the books than text, so include images and pop-up books,
DIY instructions to cut shapes etc.
• VUI to talk like humans do, ask child about his moods, ask questions if he understands a
particular term in the story and provide information in advance.
• One challenge is to keep the session active, children have very short attention span and
might make noise / speak in between readings or can pause in middle, so there should be a
way to keep session active (without Alexa or google play keyword) and also restart the story
where they last left.
• Content wise classic fairytales are not the right type of content to be presented to the new
age children. There are so many more stories that engage children in STEM and this seems
to be the wave most parents are following, by passing those classics as they are not the most
up to date in terms of being positive role models for children. Not saying classics aren't great,
I just don't think they are as intriguing as a first contact idea for those people who think of
themselves as early adopters (early mainstream).
• When people think of smart speakers they often think of those people, themselves, as being
up to date with the latest and future minded, so even just as a sample, thinking of a more
gender neutral story that puts the child centre stage as opposed to a fictional character may
be a good idea. So having the option to begin with On a distant planet or in the year 2050
may be more intriguing for some children and parents.

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USER FEEDBACK
Likes:
• It can help children with reading.
• Brings a non-digital element into a child’s life.
• Topic is very relevant and sounds like a good alternative to the TV where it’s difficult for the
users to switch off their child from it.
• Background score can retain the attention of a child.
• Evaluation and pronunciation improvement will benefit the child.
• Auto mailer to parents about their child’s score and improvement would be helpful to track
progress of the child.
• Ten year old girl love the concept and played the part well while testing the prototype.
New ideas:
• Auditory indication at the end of the hidden text, so that the child knows its his turn to
read.
• Include variety in reading material/levels so that there is learning of broad vocabulary for
the child with time.
• Allow children to read out character voices and it can be acted out in a group.
• Reward the child in the end like progress or new levels unlocked options.
• Record audio files to send as an audio gifts for grandparents (when child learns a new
language a message in that language can be sent to the grandparents in a voice note format).
• Over time audio recordings can help parents track progress of the child.
• VUI cues: Make the VUI cues relevant for the child to read its part. How might you use
queues to guide younger children through the process? (eg. “Now tell me about where
Rapunzel goes next?” Versus “your turn Jack” for an older child) so that child stays engaged.

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“Why do people tell stories?
For many reasons. Sometimes stories share wisdom about the best
way to live. Sometimes stories keep the past alive, or prepare us for
the future. Sometimes stories make us laugh, or scare us, or make us
wonder about what strange things might happen in the world. But
always stories connect us with people — the ones who cared enough
to keep the story alive.”
Barbara r. duncan
(The Origin of the Milky Way & Other Living Stories of the Cherokee)
(Duncan, 72).

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VALUE PROPOSITION
FINAL SOLUTION
For iterating the prototype and building my final solution I divided the elements that made my
solution. Below is how I envisioned using them for my solution.
Role of Play in the upbringing of a child: Children are storytellers. They are always eager to
know new things, explore how things work and tell stories about it. They are also impulsive.
The early years of their life that is from age group of 3 to 8 years old, all children are involved in
something called as ‘Play’ that helps shape their personality. Play is the first and most
memorable way to remember.
Pretend Play: Language skills are build through pretend play, which starts to emerge
around when they are 12 months old. That is when they would pretend to sleep, eat or
sip imaginary water out of imaginary glass. With growing up, this play becomes much
more complex and imaginative.
Executive functions: Mind control is the ability to control your thoughts, actions and
emotions. It allows one to plan, follow instructions, multitask and mentally adapt to
tasks. It nurtures the qualities for the mini adult in making. When children are in their
pretend play, they engage others and actively pay attention and respond as per their
narrative.
Active Play: Active physical Play amplifies their body skills. Games and sports get a
child up and moving and have clear cut rules that teach a child to master their impulses
and focus.
Object Play: Object play is the urge to explore new objects. Children need to explore
objects on their own, feel them with their hands, touch them with their mouth. They
need to drop things and see what happens and pick it back up, which combines to help
them learn about cause and effect. This helps them gain skills of problem solving.
Another skill they learn is the concept of decontextualisation. which means considering
something in isolation from its context. When a child puts a bowl on his head and call it
a crown, that is when he is decontextualising the bowl. This lays a groundwork for the
poetic metaphor. All these kinds of play fulfils the curiosity of the child. Play isn’t just
fun and games, it much more. It helps to foster creativity in children. The child learns
many critical things through play.

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FINAL SOLUTION
Voice Technology
Voice is the natural way of interaction for humans. This interaction liberates users from the
effort of learning about the interaction. Users expect human-like conversations from the smart
speakers if you expect them to stay engaged with it, although, smart speakers today rely on
commands rather than conversations. The dialogue is missing from the devices today and that’s
why it is just doing the job and not facilitating the true learning.
The potential that smart speakers have is the magic of AI that resides in it. It has the power to
not just listen to your command but also gather this data, analyse it and process the relevant
answer for the user, which makes it an active participant to continue the conversation, unlike
internet where you would passively consume unfiltered virtual clutter.
Books
Earlier days people would talk about the terms bookworm or buried inside the books, because
books were the places for people to travel to explore and to find a peace of mind. Recently, book
reading has dropped immensely, due to the emergence of internet. There are still e-readers that
encourage new ways of reading. There is such a magic in the smell of a new book, the feel of the
paper and the sound of its flutter that it is sad that today’s children don’t get to experience the
purity of the material. The words that are printed on a paper do imprint better on the mind of a
reader. There is no reason why one shouldn’t be reading the books.
If you compare the books with the screens, the screen have an addictive hook (dopamine) that
makes you go for more and creates a level of constant dissatisfaction in the user, whereas books
move slowly, you can’t hurry reading a book. One has to be very focused to absorb the
knowledge in the books. Reading aloud a book helps the emotional development of a child and
increases his ability to learn.
Content Design
There are a lot of things parents want their child to learn while growing up, but in the emerging
technology, there are lot of unwanted or harmful things that make their way into the child’s
mind through the passage of the screens. Thus, there is a serious need to organise and filter the
virtual garbage and provide the healthiest media diet for the child. Parents are very careful
about what a child eats, thus, they need to be very mindful about what media diet their child is
consuming. There is a definite need for curating appropriate content for the children and create
protective barriers wherever needed so that children are away from the harmful content.

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FINAL SOLUTION
All this considerations helped me bring the best ideas together for designing my ﬁnal solution.
• Making it important to include playfulness for the children to learn using this solution.
• Create an interactive interaction which is more like a conversation for a child and a smart
speaker (VUI).
• Include a non-digital interface which is a physical book for navigating the voice universe.
• Make content specially curated for the child and allow a child’s mode of interaction for
conscious learning.
Solution:
JOY OF LEARNING
What is it?
• It’s an interactive Voice technology based solution which combines uniquely designed
physical books and a curated audio content application on a smart speaker.
• Children learn through playful interaction with the special books and smart speaker.
• Children learn to read, listen and respond which helps them improve their vocabulary
through an active conversational interaction so they stay engaged in the learning process.
• Include a non-digital interface which is a physical book for navigating the voice universe,
thus makes it a creative and intelligent visual alternative to the screens.
• The content is specially designed and curated considering the healthy media diet of the
children to help them grow safe and smart for their future.
• Smart speaker using voice recognition detects the voice of the child and goes into child’s
mode, where it makes the interaction suitable and consistent for the child.

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FINAL SOLUTION
How does it work?
The application on the smart speaker consists of an interactive voice universe where children
can play, imagine and navigate using their voice by speaking the written keywords in those
books. This way it brings back the joy of learning with endless possibilities found in AI
technology.
BUY
Every family can buy ‘Joy
of Learning books’,
where the books are
specially designed to
have some text missing or
hidden and entire text at
the end of the book.
ACTIVATE
Once the books are
home, families need to
activate the ‘Joy of
Learning’ Application on
the speaker using a voice
command “Hey… , Open
‘Joy of Learning’.
INTERACT
When these books are
opened and read out
aloud while interacting
with the Joy of Learning
platform, the speaker
detects the book and
unlocks it for the users to
read with it.

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FINAL SOLUTION
JOY OF LEARNING KIT
When one orders these books, they receive a Joy of Learning kit which includes a set of ﬁve
books and an instruction manual that details how to use these books and basic steps to get
started.
There will also be a trigger word ‘teach me…’ or ‘help me..’ that you say to the speaker to listen
to an audio tutorial for the beginners on the Joy of Learning Platform.
The application can be accessed on webpage of google actions in case of google speaker platform.

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JOY OF LEARNING KIT
Possibilities
With the emerging innovation in AI technology comes the endless possibilities of learning
material. Following are a few categories I have considered to present knowledge using my
platform.
STORYBOOKS
Fictional and non-fictional stories for children curated as per their age and from all over the
world, so that they learn about nature, history and culture. These storybooks will have
illustrations to help explain a concept visually to a child. Stories with reimagining classic tales
to have a more gender neutral learning and positive character building. These can teach them
about values essential for building an ethical adult. At the end of every story, there will be a
reading score to reward a child and to improve his vocabulary/pronunciation skills. Automated
reading score/reading report for parents so that they can track the progress of their child over a
period of time. Quizzes for memory tests and keyword voice search to discover new information
about the new terms in the stories.
BOOKS FOR ENTERTAINMENT
Role play or theatre books where there could be different colour codes for different character’s
dialogues and the speaker plays one character while reader plays another one. More family
members can join this game so that it becomes more fun. One can also start practicing a
performance using this, where lyrics from the book will be read out and speaker would provide
melody for it. A person band can be formed with this.

50
JOY OF LEARNING KIT
EDUCATIONAL BOOKS
These books can have topic wise lessons for learning about a particular subject like astronomy
or human history. The learning will be validated with tests and quizzes.
LANGUAGE LEARNING
With the instant voice feedback and pronunciation help, VUI oﬀers a perfect platform for one
to learn a new language. Gamiﬁcation methodology will be used to design the interaction.
There will be levels where one can unlock by learning through books and interaction. Using
this, one could record a voice note message of a child in a native language that can be sent as an
audio gift to the grandparents during the festivals. There will be voice enabled translation
dictionary which will unlock the mysteries of a new culture.
HEALTH TOOL KIT
Playful mini exercise books for the children. There are many complaints about the screen, but
worst of it is that it is adding to the obesity concerns in the children. Children sit with their
screen based devices at one place and do no go out and play. Thus, considering this, the exercise
books will have illustrations of the step by step playful exercises which a child needs to follow
with the voice prompt from the speaker. Thus exercise becomes more fun and helpful.

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JOY OF LEARNING KIT
DIY KIT
To learn about science, arts and crafts, these books would have step by step instructions and
voice will help with use cases, music and sound eﬀects to make the process fun and interactive.
MUSIC LEARNING
Using the potential of sound detection of a particular musical instruments, this book could help
user master a new music instrument using books to refer for how to use the instruments and its
positioning of notes and audio guide to detect and assist in the music creation.
EVALUATION
Parents will receive a feedback about their child’s interaction
via email, so that they can track the progress of the child and
stay actively involved in his learning.

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JOY OF LEARNING as a Brand
The ‘Joy Of Learning’ would enter into the world of children and thus the world of Parents. Its
role would evolve over the years not just in educating and entertaining the families but also
becoming part of the families. The way ‘Joy Of Learning’ will achieve this is by empathising
with the role that a parent plays in the life of a child and try to help them make this connection
stronger. The journey would be towards becoming an ideal Parent-friendly brand.
Parents would experience the ‘Joy Of Parenting’ with this brand. The technology has served
families but has also impacted the way family connects today. The real connections are lost due
to the barrier of the screens. With the presence of this product in the homes, family-members
will now experience eye-to-eye connections with each other. The dependency on the screens
would reduce drastically, because voice technology will serve majority of their needs. It will
help them earn extra time for the family and less time for the notiﬁcations on the screens. The
interactive learning experiences for the child will make him/her more expressive and bright,
which would create presence of more happy faces in the households. The positivity would
reﬂect and enter into the mind of the multitasking parents. The interactive group games would
add playfulness to any family dinner. The things parents have been struggling to teach children
without screens (like morals, values, etc.) would now be possible through the medium of books
and voices. There won’t be anymore concerns with what kind of content is reaching the child, it
will all be curated and safe. The children beginning their learning journey early in their lives
with speakers and books, would have less chances of the screen-addiction. The progress of the
child would be visible in the way he functions as well as in the track record that ‘Joy Of
Learning’ shares with the parents. It would make them feel more responsible and proud.

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JOY OF LEARNING as a Brand
The ‘Joy Of Learning’ understands the pain and the hard work of being a parent and it will try
to facilitate the environment to help parents parent better for their child. It won’t replace the
parent, because child does need a human touch, a hug and love from his/her parent. ‘Joy Of
Learning’ can not possibly provide the ‘Joy of Loving’ the way a mother or a father does, but it
will always strive to provide the space for the family to bond.
Most parents want to be supportive, encouraging and aﬀectionate towards their children to feel
as an ideal parent. They feel that emotional needs of a child are their ﬁrst priority over their
functional needs and that’s where they want to be there for their child. Most of the top brands
today fail to connect with real parenting needs. There are large gaps between what parents want
from an ideal parent-friendly brand and what they think brands actually deliver.
The role of a Joy of Learning will be supportive, relieving pressure and celebrating success of
parenting. It will go further to understand the challenges that are common to families like
pressure of being the ‘ideal parent’. The ‘Joy Of Learning’ Platform would deliver support
throughout their journey with the parenting. The power of technology and power of data
combined with deep empathy for the users, will help the Joy Of Learning to make sure that
parenting feels more joyful and less stressful! Its ultimate goal is to solve the broader issue of
tech-life balance for parents who are attempting to minimise the screen time for their children.
BRAND VALUES
Empathy, Care, Fair, Unique, Trustworthy, Inspiring, Passionate, Welcoming, Approachable,
Genuine, Innovative.

55
VALUE PROPOSITION STATEMENT
Our Solution 'Joy of Learning' is an interactive voice based learning platform combined with
physical books that helps Parents (of children aged 3-8 yrs old) who want to provide best kind of
education and entertainment to their child by avoiding/reducing the usage of screen based
devices and access to unfiltered information and increasing/promoting healthy development of
child, filled with play and imagination that helps brings family closer.
FOR END USERS:
(Parents with at least 1 child between age 3 to 8 and that owns a Smart Speaker)
An intelligent solution to minimise the screen time for the end users.
FOR CUSTOMERS: (Refer to Business model description)
(Publishing Houses specialising in Children’s books)
An innovative alternative to deliver the content of the publishing houses through the
platform of the smart speakers and physical books.
The competitor’s like Lego Duplo Stories or Disney’s Read
along do have their significant value creation, but fail to
solve the problems of the end users. Lego’s Duplo Stories
have pre-scripted stories, which a child may not want to
hear in order to build a lego world. It only enhances the
experience but in a very passive manner and doesn’t involve
a family member with the child.
Disney’s Read along has a feature which will be part of the
‘Joy of Learning’ Solution. The relevant music and sound
effects as the reader reads, does enhance the reading part,
but there is no learning beyond that. There is no interaction
with the device as well, which makes it less engaging or
playful compared to Joy of Learning.*(For more details ever to the
Swot Analysis on page 74)

56
EXPERIENCE INTENT
PURPOSE
To make learning joyful for everyone!
VISION
Our vision is to make people ﬁnd new possibilities of learning
outside the screens.
MISSION
Our mission is to provide the best interactive educational and
entertainment content to the families using the power of voice
technology combined with uniquely designed physical books
that foster creativity and imagination.

57
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
DESIGN SOLVES AN IMPORTANT HUMAN PROBLEM.
Every parent in today’s modern world either shares a fear or complains about the issue of the
screen-addiction in their child’s life but is unable to keep their child away from screens. The
screen-addiction impacts children in various ways such as physical health issues (Obesity,
sleeplessness) due to sitting at one place and not going out to play. Mental impact include
feeling less emotionally connected, an inability to empathise or read social cues. The issue also
exists amongst parents who are unable to avoid screens in front of their children. The growing
concern and seriousness of this issue is what helped focus the design of the solution.
One component of the solution is a physical book. Books are better than screens, since books
don’t have same hooks as screens that keep us providing constant feedback of likes and ratings.
Also, books move slowly and it needs self-motivation for one to get through the book and it is
one place where a child learns about practicing patience. Another component of the solution is
conversational AI that lets a child practice listening and reading skills which helps him build
his vocabulary and ﬁnd relevant information while allowing him to still imagine while
interacting. Thus, my solution could help solve the core issue of the screen-addiction and make
lives better for the parents.
DESIGN ENHANCES HUMAN ABILITY (WITHOUT REPLACING THE HUMAN)
If technology can be designed to enhance our human abilities then, humans won’t fear it, but
embrace it. This principle encouraged me to think about how my solution can thoughtfully
augment people rather than replace them.
With my solution, I intend to let users (Parents and Children) use their natural ability to talk to
the speaker, read from the physical book and listen and respond to the speaker which will
improve their ability to talk, listen and interact with their parents/children in future. I am not
replacing a parent with a speaker, rather I am involving parents as well as replacing screens so
that children can play and imagine in the most natural way. It also allows parents and children
to instantly discover new information by saving hassle of looking for it on the multiples and
addictive platforms like phones or computers. In this way, a parent and a child can look at each
other and have the advantage of the Voice UI to discover and get whatever they want. It’s a
prime example of how technology can be designed as a human aid.
DESIGN IS CONTEXT SPECIFIC (IT DOESN’T FOLLOW HISTORICAL CLICHES).
In following this principle, I tried to break the traditional format of storybooks and made it
‘incomplete’ in a way that it can only work when it's read along with the speaker. In the same
manner, the stories won’t move further unless until its read by a human on the physical book,
thus encouraging the physical interaction while interacting with voice UI. This way users would
connect with speaker while still enjoying the ‘humane’ feeling of touching the books, seeing the
real printed version and imagining while listening.

58
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
GOOD DESIGN WORKS FOR EVERYONE, EVERYDAY.
The design solution would not be an interruption, but a delight for parents to see their kids
improving their reading and listening skills. It would also help parents improve their language
skills and enhance their story-time with children. Thus, it will be useful for both parents and
children.
GOOD DESIGN IS A PLATFORM THAT GROWS WITH NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES.
This principle made me think about how to use the potential of the AI technology behind the
speakers that learns and grows, with functionality that may change over time with software
updates. The technology will constantly improve as per user feedback and can also support as
the user grows older so that it suits its evolving needs by providing educational content or
health related guidance or moral stories or language improvement skills, etc.
GOOD TECHNOLOGY DESIGN LEARNS AND PREDICTS HUMAN BEHAVIOUR.
Considering this principle in mind, the design solution uses the idea of constant learning from
each interaction and using that learning to predict the learning specifically suited for each
family member (using voice recognition). For example, when the child is reading the book, it
will listen to the reader and play specific sound effects to enhance the reading and keep the
reader engaged. Also when it finishes its part of reading, the speaker would began its part of
reading without user having to ask or command for it.
Shortcomings of today’s smart speakers is that they rely on commands rather than
conversations, so by considering this feedback, the design solution would proactively suggest
relevant activities or information for the reader in order to keep him motivated to discover more
of it. The aim is to use the potential of AI to improve a specific aspect of a person’s life based on
their behaviour.

59
BUSINESS CASE
TAM/SAM/CORE MARKET
For the understanding the business, one can take into account, the market availability in the
Spain region itself. (See following page for more details.)
TARGET MARKET
Spain
TARGET CUSTOMER
Household with at least 1 child between age 3 to 8 AND that owns a Smart Speaker.
Total Available Market : 6,000,000 Households
Serviceable Available Market : 2,400,000 Households
Core Market : 600,000 Households

60
DESCRIPTION
The smart speaker market is booming worldwide and specially in the US. For creating a
business case here, one can start with the Spanish Market for this solution, since the initial user
research took place in this region. There are a few assumptions we will consider for this case.
Let's start with the total approximate population of Spain being 45 Million and assumption that
the number of people per household would be 2.5 on an average. That gives us total number of
households in Spain as 18 Million. According to one EU report, one of every three households
have a dependent child who are aged below 15 (“Families with Children in EU…, 72”). That gives
us 6 Million households with dependent children. Next, let’s assume that all the children from
age group 1 to 15 are equally distributed in each of these households (that gives us total 15
households having children 1 to 15). The households with the target age group of the solution is
3 to 8 (that gives us 6 households with age group 3 to 8). To calculate the the total number of
households with the target age group, we can divide the the ratios of the number of households
with the target age group (6) with the total number of households with the dependent children
(15) which gives us 6/15 = 40/100 = 40 percent.
Forty percent of the 6 Million is 2.4 Million which is the number of households with the
dependent children aged between 3 to 8. Let's assume that out of these 2.4 Million households,
only 20% have a smart speaker at their homes. That gives us total potential households for the
business of our solution as 600,000 households.
The books would be sold in a bundle of ﬁve, where each bundle would cost € 50 and let's
assume each household buys on average 5 of these bundles annually. That gives us the total
potential revenue as € 150 Million.

61
ALTERNATE CASE
To consider a pessimistic scenario, if in case, instead of 5 bundles, we end up selling only 3
bundles each year to each of these households, where each bundle would cost € 50. That gives
us the total potential revenue as € 90 Million in Spain at the end of the 3 years.

62
BUSINESS MODEL DESCRIPTION
A Business Model describes the rationale of how an organisation creates, delivers, and captures value.
In this case, the company needs to create and capture value by systematically collaborating with
outside partners making it an open business model with ‘inside-out’ innovation approach. This
will be done by profiting from others’ use of our innovation. The business model will be B2B
where Children’s book Publishing houses will be the primary customer.
The goal of the company is to reach millions and billions of households with the dependent
children and the smart speakers. One way to achieve this is by tapping into the market of
Publishing houses that publish children’s books. Thus, instead of printing books from scratch, it
would be more beneficial to use the established market presence of the publishing houses and
collaborate with them so that they could use our innovation and publish and promote our
unique books to the end users. Publishers are more interested in books they can print in
quantity for sale to a large audiences, so this business model would be satisfying their needs.
The current solution that this company provides is a potent combination of a physical book, a
voice technology based application and a smart speaker that has a potential to disrupt the
children’s book industry and get a dominant positioning in the market. In this case, final
product (Unique books+smart speaker application) will offer an intelligent solution to minimise
the screen time for the end users (Parents with at least 1 child between age 3 to 8 and that owns
a Smart Speaker). To make this value proposition for end users possible, company will offer an
innovative alternative to deliver the content & books of the publishing houses through the
platform of the smart speakers. This way the company can earn most of its revenue by licensing
its technology to the publishing houses.

63
FEASIBILITY AND COST ASSESSMENT
To get started with the work in house, one needs to plan the costs and expenses of building the
company from scratch. Below chart is the breakdown of what all human resources and all the
expenses for the infrastructure this company would need to begin the work. Along with the
admin staﬀ, the major three departments would be :
1. Sales & Marketing Team
2. Development Team
3. Content Creation Team

64
FINANCIAL PLAN
REVENUE PLAN
If customer comprises the heart of a business Model, Revenue streams are its arteries. In this
case, the revenue will be generated by licensing the technology to the publishing houses
(customers) and earning licensing revenue in the form of the percentage of the sale that the
customer makes.
The customer will be given a permission to use the voice technology for the unique books they
sell in exchange of the licence fees. Licencing will allow this company to generate revenues from
their technology without having to publish their books on own.
According to wikipedia, there are almost Fifty four publishing houses worldwide that specialise
in children’s books (“List of publishers…, 72). If we target some of them in our three years
revenue plan, then the progress will be seen in the chart below.
According to an official source, in US alone, 260 Million Children’s books were sold in 2014.
(Stolper, 72). Considering this information, let’s assume that each publishing house sells
200,000 Joy of Learning books each half year. We approach one publishing house in the first
half of the year to publish our books. We charge licensing fees of 7.5% of publishing house
revenue, that gives us a licensing revenue of €150,000 Million by the end of the first year on the
sale of 200,000 Books ("Software Royalties”, 72). We will be approaching new publishing houses
each year and let’s assume there will be 25% growth in the number of books sold by each
publishing house each year. That gives us approximately €3,870,117 of licensing revenue at the
end of the third year.

65
THREE YEAR FINANCIAL PLAN
To paint a complete picture of the finances for the coming three years, one can refer to the
financial plan below. We take into account licensing revenue generated each half a year and
expenses of the company each half a year. That provides us with the total Earning Before
Interests and Taxes (EBIT) at the end of the third year as €2,409,768. The company will incur
some losses till the second year but then the break even point will be reached in the 2nd half of
the 2nd year and then as per the addition of a new publishing house and a growth in sales of the
books the profit margin will grow eventually.
INVESTMENTS
One could understand that to start the company from scratch one needs to invest a lump-sum
amount of money. In this case, the investment will be approximate amount of €200,000. This
investment can be gained from many investor options such as venture capitalists or a publishing
house. This initial investment will be used in setting up different teams, setting up office space
and infrastructure and the various costs and expenses related to the company.

66
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
The timeline for the way this company will kick-start its work will define its strategy for success.
Meticulous planing and detailed groundwork will make the foundations strong. Find below one
year plan for the launch of business in the market, where first half of the year will be used for
establishing the team, partnering with publishing houses and approaching a publishing house
for the first project and 2nd half will be for approaching two new publishing houses with the
work in progress, then the first launch in the market with the delivery of the books from the
publishing houses to the end customer.

67
CUSTOMER DEVELOPEMENT PLAN
Retaining customers and growing brand awareness are mounting challenges for B2B
businesses. In this case, the customer experience of the publishing houses will be at a ‘core
piece’ of the company’s strategy. The dedicated team of accounts manager in the company will
be actively involved in shaping the customer experience.
After the planning of the business model, the market analysis and the financial investments,
one needs to plan next steps in the journey. The customer development is an important process
in order make your business ideas sustainable. There are two major phases of this process,
search and execution.
Customer Discovery
In this case, the search phase works by customer discovery and customer validation. With the
market analysis and the business model canvas, the customer segment was discovered that is a
publishing house for children’s books. The company has identified a problem and came up with
the product which is a problem solution fit for our end user as well as the customer. Thus, one
needs to get started with the creation of the first MVP of ‘Joy of Learning’ books’ content to be
provided to the publishing house. Once, that is build, one needs to find ways to reach out to the
publishing house through the funnel of sales/marketing teams and get at least one on-board
with for the project.
PROBLEM SOLUTION
FIT
PROPOSED MVP
PROPOSED
FUNNEL(S)
PRODUCT MARKET
FIT
BUSINESS MODEL
SALES & MARKETING
ROADMAP
SCALE EXECUTION
SCALE
ORGANISATION
SCALE
OPERATIONS
SEARCH EXECUTE
PIVOT

68
Customer Validation
Let's assume, we started with the project work, and the publishing house will be publishing
these books and selling it in the market. The urgent requirement here is to get the feedback
from the customer which is publishing house about how did the market receive it. Then also,
analysing the market demand and end customer feedback, we need to revise the business
model if needed or follow it as per the plan. The real feedback is provided by the readers which
is the end user, so from our own channels like voice technology platform, we will be provided
with immediate feedbacks on the interaction, and it can also help us to see if there are any
loopholes in the contents of the books. Then, considering the feedback from the customer and
the end users, one can create a sales and marketing roadmap to plan ahead.
Customer Creation
Once we know our business model is a success, we can go ahead and scale the updated
execution plan. We can take this success story and approach more publishing houses and
produce more content. That way, we will have a pool of customers for our business.
Customer Building
With multiple customers we can plan on scaling the organisations to be able to satisfy the needs
of the customer and grow the business. Once, the organisation is bigger, there will be eventually
need to scale up the operations to work across various publishing houses. Thus, ultimately we
will be building our own community of customers who would become market leader in the
children’s book publishing sector.
At every step of the process, company will follow the rule of thumb:
Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.
Illustration by Peter Oumanski

69
CONCLUSIONS
We all switch between the two worlds these days, Real and Virtual. The virtual world is our
escape most of the times from the real world. Is the real world missing something that we
escape it every chance we get and go back online? Is it not! Looks like, in the superficiality of the
virtual world, we all have forgotten the magic of the real world. The real world could give in
abundance, what our virtual world lacks “a wholesome sensory experience”. Being with your
friends, seeing a tree, watching a butterfly land on your finger all of these require direct
interaction with our senses. Our virtual world today is separate from us. We watch television,
we read books to understand the real or imagined experiences of others. Playing videos games
can be awesome, but it can also lack the authenticity of playing football in the mud, or of
building a sand castle on the beach. I wondered what it would take to close the gap without
losing essence of being in the reality. If we achieve this, then we also have the possibility to
positively transform the process of education, to change how we design things, to make our
communications feel real and to explore completely new worlds.
There is a new trend is emerging called as Internet of Thinking. Many businesses are making
big bets on intelligent environments via robotics, AI and immersive experiences. Across
industries, the next generation of intelligent solutions are moving into physical environments.
We need to pay attention to these early adopters and refine our education system. Then, we can
start providing the knowledge and skill-building content to fuel this technology trend. It's
definitely something we as designers should join now rather than be left behind by.
The foundation of tomorrows world, are the children of today. We need to focus on improving
the parenting using technology. Seamlessly integrated technology will empower parents in the
next decade in soothing, entertaining, learning and caring for young children, further enriching
the lives of young families.
Tech’s impact on the human connection is a topic of debate. In the future, innovations in
sensors, wearable and touchscreens may produce products that can help parents identify mood
swings, track growth and development, personalise learning and more. How will tech empower
parents in their universal pursuit of raising a happy child? Do devices assist or threaten the
notion of responsible parenting? There are many concerns that parents will face today and in
future, but one thing is clear, that the future will definitely provide empathetic alternative for
the parents to future proof their kids.
Warren Buckleitner, editor of the Children’s Technology Review website, says that when the
technology becomes less visible, play comes to the fore (Buckleitner, 72). We are entering the era
of invisible technology and voice tech-based platforms are just the beginning of it. The
solutions like Joy of Learning will definitely pave a way in the direction of screen-less futures for
the world.

70
I believe that the world at times can be very hard and cynical, but every child deserves its
chance to play and imagine endless possibilities. With our creative thinking and open minds,
we are entering the bright future of parenting.

71
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Perry, Jade. Internet of Eyes and Ears. www.jwtintelligence.com/2018/03/internet-eyes-ears/, 5
March. 2018
Müller, Stefanie. "How Spain's rise to digital leader has gone under the radar". www.dw.com/en/
how-spains-rise-to-digital-leader-has-gone-under-the-radar/a-43235930, 3 April. 2018
Lacy, Lisa. "Why Amazon and Google’s Global Share of the Smart Speaker Market Is on the
Decline”. adweek, www.adweek.com/digital/why-amazon-and-googles-global-share-of-the-
smart-speaker-market-is-on-the-decline/, 18 May. 2018
"Global smart speaker shipments”. Businesswire, "Strategy Analytics: Amazon’s Global Smart
Speaker Share Falls Below 50% in Q1 2018 as Competition Heats Up”, businesswire.com/news/
home/20180517006158/en/Strategy-Analytics-Amazon’s-Global-Smart-Speaker-Share, 17 May.
2018, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
Martin, Brian. "GDPR Implications for Speech Technology”. spitch, www.spitch.ch/blog/gdpr-
implications-for-speech-technology/, 16 May 2018.
"Sher.pa”. Speakeasy, “Spain Voice Proﬁle”, J. Walter Thompson Intelligence. Page 49, 2017.
“AlterEgo”. MIT, "Project AlterEgo”, www.media.mit.edu/projects/alterego/overview/, MIT
Media Lab, 2018.
Dickson, EJ. A Decade After the iPhone, "There’s Still No Good Smartphone for
Kids", Medium, medium.com/s/thenewnew/why-theres-no-good-smartphone-for-
kids-1e6739a162dd, 26 Nov. 2018
Image resource link: Joe Prytherch
Roettgers, Janko. "Disney Uses Google Home Speakers to Add Soundtracks to Kids
Books”, Variety, variety.com/2018/digital/news/disney-google-home-read-along-1203014646/, 30
Oct. 2018
Image Credit: Courtesy of Google
Ong, Thuy. "Lego’s new Alexa skill has voice-guided instructions and tells
stories”, theVerge, www.theverge.com/2018/5/3/17314100/lego-duplo-stories-interactive-skill-
amazon-alexa, 3 May 2018.
Olson, Christi. "Just say it: The future of search is voice and personal digital
assistants”, Campaign, www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/just-say-it-future-search-voice-personal-
digital-assistants/1392459, 25 April 2016.
De Renesse, Ronan. "Virtual digital assistants to overtake world population by
2021”, OVUM, ovum.informa.com/resources/product-content/virtual-digital-assistants-to-
overtake-world-population-by-2021, 17 May 2017.

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Kang, Abraham. "Understanding the Diﬀerences Between Alexa, API.ai, WIT.ai, and LUIS/
Cortana”, Medium, medium.com/@abraham.kang/understanding-the-diﬀerences-between-
alexa-api-ai-wit-ai-and-luis-cortana-2404ece0977c, 24 April 2017.
Sim, Herbert. "Voice Assistants: This Is What The Future Of Technology Looks
Like”, Forbes, www.forbes.com/sites/herbertrsim/2017/11/01/voice-assistants-this-is-what-the-
future-of-technology-looks-like/#4053d87523aa, 1 Nov. 2017.
Duncan, Barbara. The Origin of the Milky Way & Other Living Stories of the Cherokee. The
University of North Carolina Press , 2008
“Families with Children in EU”, eurostat, ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/
EDN-20170531-1?inheritRedirect=true&redirect=%2Feurostat%2F, 31 May. 2017
“List of publishers of children's books”, Wikipedia,en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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Image courtesy: unsplash.com
Icons sourced from VectorStock
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73
APPENDIX
INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE
Do you own a smartphone ? which one? android or iPhone?
What is the first thing you do when you wake up with your phone?
What are your everyday needs with your phone?
Do you use whats app audio messaging service? What are the benefits or issues that you face
with this service?
How did you first feel when you used voice tech? Why? Which have you used - why use one
over the other? When was the first time you started using it?and how many times you use it now
compared to the first time you used it?
What are your reasons behind using this service?
Does this app make it easy for your to fulfill these motivations? Why or why not?
Have you ever used this just to pass the time when you're bored? Why? Why fun?
Is there anything that ruins the experience a bit for you? How would you change the services
you are using?
Is the time you spend using your Smart Speaker replacing any time you used to spend with…?
a.Traditional AM/FM radio b.Smartphone c.Television d.Tablet e.Computer f.Printed
publications g.whole-house audio system
What kind of audio you would like to listen to - a.music b.news/talks c.podcasts d.language
learning anything else ?
How often do you use voice technology with others in your home? Do you use this for
entertainment purposes with your family?
Task commands to voice tech while spending time with family/friends: a.Play music b.answer a
question c.weather d.joke e.news f.set an alarm g.control household devices h.check the time
i.sports update j.play a game
Where would you like to put your smart speaker in? where is it usually located?
Do you use smart speakers to control household devices? Do you feel comfortable using the
voice tech on your devices?
What are your expectations? and what are your frustrations? What are the things you do using
voice tech and now its difficult for you to do the same thing manually ?

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