Creating a voice first city guide
Inga Café-Ruoff
Designing and Developing a Google Voice App
City Guide - a Google Voice app that helps people quickly and easily find suggestions for where to go out in a new city. The MVP release of City Guide focused on helping users discover and explore where to go out for a drink in NYC as the city reopened post-pandemic lockdown.
Project Overview
Due to Covid-19, people have had to cancel their travel plans and shelter in place. The project set out to explore - how can we leverage voice tech to design an experience that can provide some solace and entertainment for homebound travelers, while allowing them to step away from the screen?
Working remotely from kickoff through to launch, the project was highly collaborative, user-centered, data-driven, and iterative.
Research and Discovery
The insights and data we gathered during research, discovery, and testing provided ongoing feedback that directly informed all design decisions, pivots, and iterations from concept creation to product launch.
Methods
- Competitive Review
- Usability Testing
- Secondary Research
- WOz Testing
- User Interviews
- Conversation Mining
Understanding the User
6 in-depth interviews were conducted with travel enthusiasts in Toronto and NYC to understand what their experience in lockdown had been like as well as learn more about their love of travel, travel style, favorite destination & memories.
Meet Kaya
Exploring Solutions
During user interviews, all the participants mentioned missing enjoying their city and going out with friends. We knew we wanted to create an experience that allowed for exploration and new experiences to emerge. We came up with several concepts which didn't quite work due to their complexity.
The lesson we took from these tests was that we had to create a very simple and practical experience. The final iteration that was positively received was an app that provided recommendations for cool places to grab a drink in various neighborhoods around NYC.
Final Concept Conversation Flow
User Story
Kaya has missed enjoying NYC and going out with friends and family. Covid-19 restrictions have loosened up and she's about to go out for dinner and drinks with a friend. As she's getting ready she realizes she's not sure what restaurants and bars will be open and safe, so she asks her Google Smart Assistant for some ideas.
Bot Persona
A key feature to add delight and fun to the experience was to create a Bot with a distinct personality. Since the action would be providing "insider" recommendations, we wanted the bot to be a consummate in-the-know "bot about town" New Yorker.
To create the bot persona and figure out their standard vocabulary, phrases, voice, and tone we combed through the online conversations and reviews of bars in NYC on a variety of platforms - from Reddit, yelp, Travel Advisor, and publications like The Infatuation and Eater.
Outcome
The MVP of City Guide — New York City Bars, was shipped and available on all devices that supported Google Assistant in November 2020. The app is no longer available but had a great run for over 2 years.
