One. Animated Coffee Shop Assistant
Voice Assistants
In "Back to the Future 2", Marty McFly visits a coffee shop where the orders are taken not by a human but by a computer. Different faces appear on his screen, voicing the menu.
We at EORA created a similar assistant for the Moscow coffee chain One&Double.
Our client wanted the bot to help visitors choose an order and entertain them.
Our client wanted the bot to help visitors choose an order and entertain them.
The assistant's name is One. He is the brand name of One & Double. He is black and looks like a coffee bean.
One greets visitors to the coffee shop by waving at them from the screen of a tablet placed near the barista's counter.
One greets visitors to the coffee shop by waving at them from the screen of a tablet placed near the barista's counter.
He knows how to
01/
Acquaint you with the menu. Suggest drinks, pastries, desserts
Answer popular questions from visitors
Keep the conversation going when it's about something simple
Take feedback and report when the subject is unknown to him
Talk about coffee shop specials
02/
What's inside
Animation
We created a "living" character with facial expressions and gestures, with only a flat image on hand.
Speech Recognition System
The assistant listens carefully to what the cafe visitor says and responds according to the script of the conversation.
Facial Recognition System
One starts talking only when he sees a person close enough.
Rita Pylaeva
Project Manager
Quote
«One is not only a smart voice assistant who 'knows' many different scenarios, but also a charismatic, colorful character.»
03/
Step 02
Сreated an animation. It brought the picture to life
Step 03
Developed first the "stuffing" and then the "shell" of the service
Step 01
Designed scripts for dialogs with the user, wrote texts
Step 04
Installed and configured the facial recognition system
Step 05
Tested the assistant
Step 06
Fully launched the service
Development process
04/
One is a program that runs in a browser. As part of a pilot project, the assistant was installed in the one coffee shop only
Development timeline
05/
4 months
January - April 2022
Project Team
07/
Anastasia Lisovaya
Design, Scenario and Design of a Chat-Bot
Rita Pylaeva
Project Manager
Sergey Verentsov
Teamlead, frontend developer
Alexey Zelenov
Backend developer
08/
Challenges and discoveries
Turned out to be poor psychologists
We thought that cafe visitors would actively communicate with the assistant. But visual voice assistants are new to them. People are still wary of them, they don't dare to start a conversation.
Wrong choice of hardware
We took the Samsung Tab S7 tablet because it has a bright, thin display. But it turned out that in a noisy environment the tablet's built-in microphone does not work well. Because of inaccuracies in speech recognition and the bot did not always work well.
Reconfigured the facial recognition system
At first One "saw" very far away and tried to talk to the baristas or those in line.
Interesting fact
The standard Yandex SpeechKit voice set didn't have any that fit One. We processed the voice ourselves so that it turned out to be cartoonish, boyish - just like the character's
Results
09/
We successfully launched the pilot. We are planning to replace the tablet with another device with a better microphone
The service has good prospects. The priority is to accept orders independently
Rita Pylaeva
Project Manager
Quote
Independent reception and processing of orders is a very important function. It can bring a lot of value to a business in terms of sales and reach of visitors
Application areas
10/
Coffee shops and restaurants
Multifunctional centers
Retail (grocery stores, bookstores, clothing stores)
Banks and insurance companies
Rita Pylaeva
Project Manager
Quote
«The visual voice assistant can be used in many places. Its functionality is almost universal. The assistant screen can be installed wherever there is a flow of people who need help.»
