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Vector robot driving on a desk

Vector
GIVING VOICE TO A ROBOT

The Verge + Vector
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I sat down with The Verge to discuss our design philosophy.

Project Details

 

Company

Anki Robotics, 2018-2019

 

Challenge

While Anki's "Wall-E"-esque Cozmo robot was built for kids, it was also highly successful with adults. However, adults wanted an even more useful, higher-tech companion. Our challenge was to create a robot for all ages.

 

Solution

Vector is a robot who both helps out and hangs out. His central feature is reacting to the world, including speech. We set out to create intuitive, useful, and delightful interactions with both voice and physical modalities.

 

My Role

As a Senior Designer, I led development of Vector's VUI (Voice User Interface) and related human-robot interactions.

Contents

Research

User insights, competitive analysis, story mapping


Human-Robot Interaction

Defining physical and voice interactions, prototyping, implementation

VUI

VUI/conversational design, users flows, NLP optimization, UX writing, localization/culturalization

Results

$2m in Kickstarter funding (the most ever), 4+ stars on Amazon, an active fan community who shares their life with Vector

Research

RESEARCH

Expectations and opportunities

 

User Insights

Interviews were conducted with our target demographic, early adopters of technology. We found that both Vector’s engaging character and ability to help were equally important to how they imagined a robot sidekick being part of their lives.

Competitive Analysis

We looked at other voice assistants and social robots, analyzing their personalities and functionality. We researched the most used voice commands to understand which ones users would expect.

Jibo robot and Alexa
Pepper robot

Jibo, Alexa, and Pepper all provide different styles of voice interaction.

Story Mapping

Based on our users' needs and expectations, we brainstormed a list of possible voice commands and interactions.

This list was curated by asking:

  1. Which commands will users miss if they’re not included?

  2. Which commands are requirements for Vector’s core features?

  3. Which commands could Vector do uniquely well due to his character, mobility, or computer vision?

Whiteboard with handwriting and sticky notes

Brainstorming and story mapping of Vector's voice commands.

Human-Robot Interaction

Research
Human-Robot Interacton

Voice interaction principles

I created guiding principles as we built out Vector's voice and physical interactions. These were based on stakeholder interviews, user insights, cross-team collaboration, and competitive analysis.

Sketch of someone whispering to Vector robot

1. Intuitive Interactions

When I say a voice command, Vector responds in the way I expect.

Sketch of Vector next to keys, looking up at someone

2. Engaging Character

When I talk to Vector, he feels lifelike. Interacting with Vector is part of my daily routine.

Sketch of Vector robot exploring in a shag carpet, a ray of light illuminating him

3. Discoverability

Voice commands are easily discoverable in the Vector app. Expected commands either work or fail elegantly.

Sketch of Vector robot with rain on his face and umbrellas in the background

4. Useful Feedback

If my voice command fails, I know why and how to succeed next time. If an interaction fails and it wasn't my fault, Vector's reaction is clear and endearing.

Storyboards by the character design team.

VOICE INTERACTION

Designing the "wake word" interaction

The development of Vector's wake word ("Hey, Vector") interaction started with a massive problem to solve. Vector's mic is right next to his gears and speakers. If he reacts to let a user know he has heard his name, the noise generated obfuscates the user's voice command.

White board with brainstorm of Vector prototype
Spreadsheet of details of prototype

1. Test Design

I held a brainstorming session with technical and creative functions.

We decided to test 3 wake word responses for usability and accuracy:

  1. Prototype A: No reaction

  2. Prototype B: Small reaction (sound but no turn)

  3. Prototype C: Big reaction (sound and turn)

A man checking out Vector robot in user test

2. User Testing

During user tests, Prototype C (big reaction)  was the most usable. Fortunately, even though it had almost 300 milliseconds of the user's intent obfuscated by gear noise, our voice system was still able to match intents even with missing words.

Animation of a woman telling Vector to come here and him responding

3. Wake Word Interaction Design

Prototype C (big reaction) was the winner, and we went to work implementing a big, clear reaction to the wake word.

VUI (Voice User Interface)

VUI

VUI DESIGN

Vector's voice commands

Working across the design team, I led efforts to define and maintain our voice commands and variations. Here are some of the commands I co-wrote and optimized.

Vector with illustration of connected neuons in the shape of a cloud.

Q&A Mode

  • User-facing voice command: "Hey Vector, I have a question.", "[How far away is the moon?]"

  • Entity: [question]

  • Variations: Question, I need to ask you something, Knowledge graph, Answer this

Vector with 4:59 timer his face.

Timer

  • User-facing voice command: "Hey Vector, set a timer for [5 minutes]"

  • Entity: [time-duration], fail on more than 1 hour

  • Variations: Timer for [5 minutes], Let me know when [5 minutes] is done, Set an alarm for [5 minutes]

Vectro with a game of blacjack on his face.

Blackjack

  • User-facing voice command: "Hey Vector, let's play blackjack."

  • Entity: N/A

  • Variations: Let's play cards, Cards, Want to be dealer?, Play a card game

Vector with his eyes turned sideways, like a camera shutter snapping.

Photo

  • User-facing voice command: "Hey Vector, take a photo [of me]."

  • Entity: [none] take picture of anything, [me] = find 1 face or fail, [us] = find 2+ faces or fail

  • Variations: Take a picture, Snapshot, Photo album, Snap an image

Vector with an illustration of sunglasses on his face.

Weather

  • User-facing voice command: "Hey Vector, what's the weather [in San Francisco]

  • Entity: [location-international], if [none] use user's self-reported location or fail

  • Variations: What's the temperature [in San Francisco], Is it snowing?, Do I need an umbrella?, Should I put on my jacket?

Storyboards by the character design team.

VUI DESIGN

Q&A voice command

The Q&A voice command is an example of a VUI design I defined, collaborating with another UX designer, character design, animation, robotics engineering, and cloud engineering. The command lets a user ask an open-ended question.

User Flow

The Q&A voice command was complex because it needed to account for several successful and error responses, as well as integrate with two third-party services, Google DialogueFlow and Houndify Knowledge Base.

Flowchart of what Vector does in Q&A voice command

VUI Flow for Q&A voice command.

Voice System Optimization

Our voice system was built in Google DialogueFlow, where we trained intents (think: the thing the user wants) and specified entities (think: information we need to gather). I also onboarded and partnered with a contract team to localize/culturalize commands for the UK and Australia.

Screenshot of Google DialogueFlow, a tool to create voice interactions

Google's DialogueFlow was used to optimize our VUI system.

UX Writing

The app helps users discover what they can say. We conducted user testing to find the most usable language. For example, the most usable title for this feature was Q&A Mode. Other options I explored included: I Have a Question, Question, Information, Knowledge Graph, Database, Search, and Ask Vector. 

App design was lead by the UX/UI design team, and I contributed UX writing for features.

App screenshot of Q&A Mode
App screenshot of Time Zone feature

The Vector app helps users to discover features and use voice to interact.

Final Voice Interaction

Here is an example fo the final user experience for the Q&A voice command.

Knowledge Graph Final Experience
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The is an example for the Q&A feature's voice interaction.

Results

Results
Vector Launch Video for Kickstarter
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LAUNCH

Largest Kickstarter in history

Vector raised $2M on Kickstarter, the highest of any project in history.

Here is Vector's launch video:

USER ENGAGEMENT

Positive reviews, engaged fans

Vector on Amazon.com with 4 stars

4+ Star Review

Users gave Vector a 4+ star review on Amazon. They also wrote positively about his character, memorable moments, and multimodal functionality.

3 Vector robots with many accessories such as devil horns, bows, and bunny ears

Fan Favorite

Fans frequently post about their life with Vector. Here is one 3D artist, DesignsbyDauler, and all the accessories they built.

LEARNINGS

Voice + character = superpower

A compelling character meant people overwhelmingly trusted Vector and intuitively knew how to interact with him. Even with quirks in Vector's technology (for example, driving while hearing his name was challenging), users usually forgave the limitations and worked around them.

Animation of Vector and a rotating list of voice commands for example, "Hey Vector, what's the weather?"
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