SAM
(Speech Alternative for me)
About the Project
This project was done at MLH Hackathon on Hackathon day. The theme of the hackathon was "Designing Trustworthy AI"
The target users- People who have difficulty speaking, which are people suffering from Speech impairment, mostly stuttering and also for those who are suffering from acute anxiety.
Solution
The response to the design problem was SAM-Speech Alternative for me, which is the AI conversation assistant that comes to the rescue to fill in the awkward conversation gaps. It is a wearable device that studies your conversation pattern and forms a persona similar to you and assist you whenever you are unable to speak properly.
Timeline:
12 hours
My role:
UX Research, Concept development prototyping, and product design
Tools used:
Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator
THE CHALLENGE
Identifying ways to find the pain points and gain the trust of the user, who faces difficulty in speaking which is difficult in a short period of time. It takes time, needs patience and continuous interventions with results to develop trust.
Research & Discover
Whom are we designing for?
SAM is targeted at users who are suffering from:
Speech Impediments
Nervousness
Social Anxiety
Panic Attacks
Fear of
Public Speaking
Stammering
People who fail to have effective communication suffers plenty of problems at a personal and professional level; in order to understand the difficulties these users face, background study was done on people suffering anxiety and speech impaired people
Understanding the Problem
SPEECH IMPAIRMENT
Speech impairment is a condition in which the ability to produce speech sounds that are necessary to communicate with others is impaired. Speech impairments can be mild, such as occasionally mispronouncing a couple of words, to severe, such as not being able to produce speech sounds at all.
Since we rely on speech as one of the primary methods of communicating with others, an impairment in speech can significantly impact our ability to communicate. Speech impairments in childhood can have a negative influence on social development. Speech impairments at all stages of life can lead to social isolation, embarrassment, and shame.
70 million
No. of people around the world who strutters(a form of speech impediment)
4:1
The ratio of males to females that strutters
4/10
The number of people that were denied a job due to their speech issues(stammering)
82%
The number of children that were bullied at some point in their lives
due to the speech issues
Problems faced by the users
LESS SOCIAL INTERACTION
MISUNDERSTOOD
DIFFICULTY FINDING JOBS
BULLIED ALOT
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
LOW GROWTH AT WORKPLACE
LOW GROWTH AT WORKPLACE
LOW CONFIDENCE
How do they feel?
Have difficulty speaking many times
Faces great difficulty forming thoughts and expressing them verbally
The words get slurred while speaking
Self-conscious regarding their issues while they meet others
Mouth, lips or tongue aren't moving or cooperating correctly
Have unusual difficulty pronouncing words or syllables
Difficulty moving the mouth correctly
Informative
Record and analyze data to understand the user
Trustworthy
(in terms of accessing your personal data and doing something good with it)
Guide you to improvise
Reflective Feedback
Portable
(Comes to the rescue when in need)
Design Considerations
SAM is the AI conversation assistant that helps the targeted user group to continue with their conversation and fill in the possible conversation gaps. SAM comes with a wearable device and the app that studies your conversation pattern and forms a persona similar to you and help the user to pick up the conversation when one is able to do so.
Solution
Once the user starts using the band, they can start recording conversations and make SAM a part of the conversation.
Once it is pressed record, it will start listening to your conversation. This will help SAM understand your personality better. It will learn about the style and way of speaking, the discomforts user faces and help them when it is required.
How will it help?
Product Specifications
SAM consists of two devices, a wearable band, and the app. One has to download the SAM app on the phone to connect it to the band.
This wearable device makes use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to build user personality. It collects user's personal data (with permission) from social media apps such as Instagram, Facebook, etc. to study the pattern of the user conversation.
Should the user not wish to share their personal data with the app, then they can chat with the chatbot present on the app. It will have a set of predefined questions to help understand the user better.
Prototypes
Screen to sync SAM band with SAM app
Login Page
Signup page for SAM
After sync, before landing page, SAM asks the user to their access to social media.
The user can accept and deny, according to their choice. There is also an option WHY? to inquire more about it.
The access to social media can help SAM to read the way the user interacts behind social media so that it can eventually learn how to exactly say the user wants to when they are in need.
Social Media Access
Social media access permission
The home screen shows the connectivity of the SAM, also the user's daily progress of their conversation.
There are also speech exercises that can be done on a daily basis, devised to help the user improve their conversation skills.
Dashboard-Home
The home screen of the user
AI Chat carousel
Chat option- where the user can specify the kind of setting in which they want to improve their speaking skills.
Upon clicking the setting, there will be AI guide which would converse with the user and pick up the conversation skills(this can help, should the user prevent the access of his/her social media account to SAM
AI Guide
SAM records the important conversation areas which they feel the user can work upon in their store log.
The users can access it and reflect back to get a better understanding of the areas they need to work upon.
Recordings
Conversation recorded store log
The profile page shows the statistics of the user's progress over a period of time. This helps them to track, reflect and more work upon themselves, should there any warning or downfall in their progress.
SAM gives an alert and appreciation when some major development or degradation is observed
Tracking Progress
Nikhil has anxiety issues and strutters when faces interviews, public speaking or arguing.
Nikhil has to appear for an interview, he wears SAM to assist him in situations where he tends to go blank or strutters.
The interview begins with HR asking him to introduce himself.
Nikhil initially answers with ease, but soon the level of difficulty of questions increases.
Nikhil anxiety and stuttering kicks in, and he gets stuck while speaking.
SAM listens to the whole interview and identifies the situation and sends a vibration to which Nikhil taps the play button.
SAM quickly fills in the awkward conversation gaps in a tone similar to Nikhil.
SAM's continuous assessment of the user helps in assisting Nikhil in the time of need.
Soon Nikhil begins to relax and continue answering the questions.
Journey with SAM
