Toothstory
In collaboration with Philips and fellow student Rooske van Loon, I analysed an existing dataset for patterns in the toothbrushing customs of families. After ideating, creating and testing two prototypes, we found that our concept using interactive storytelling positively influenced children’s personal oral healthcare. The concept consisted of an Alexa skill where family members collaborated to create a personalised story. The interactive stories were set-up to stimulate children to brush long enough, while giving educational tips and tricks hidden in the narrative. The beginning of each 2-minute chapter summarised what other family members had heard prior and each chapter ended with a question to personalise the story, allowing family members to collaboratively decide where the story would go next. The video demonstrating the prototype of the Alexa skill can be seen here.
Technology and realization
I am presenting this project to highlight my activities regarding the development of the Toothstory prototype. The demonstrator of Family Brush Story was built by writing syntax using Skill Flow Builder, an Amazon Alexa tool. In short, the concept consisted of a main storyline structure with corresponding visuals, variables and interaction modules that needed to be coded. This image shows an example of the code used to program Alexa. Besides the story in chronological order, extra commands such as ‘pause’, ‘resume’ and ‘help’ have been added to allow users to control the skill as needed. During the final assessment of the M11 semester, the prototype consisted of a skill that could be activated by asking Alexa for “Family Brush Story”. This prototype allowed users to listen to the first part of the story ‘Going on an adventure’.
Business and entrepreneurship
I really enjoyed the collaboration with Philips, as it felt like the project had more purpose and viability after finishing the semester. In addition, I believe that client contact is very educational and useful to give the project direction. In this project we paid special attention to business aspects such as costs, a revenue model and a future perspective with regard to the concept. Because the target group is children, we also found ethics extra important in this project, which I find related to a responsible business and entrepreneurship mindset. Looking back, I would have made more intensive use of the opportunities that working with a company like Philips offers. For example, we had no help in finding participants, which is a shame, because this can contribute to the validity of the study. In addition, we have not given enough thought to the vision of Philips, which fits very well with the project we have done. Exploiting this more, might have resulted in more active future steps by the client.