Hickory

Meet my pet project: Hickory - a voice assistant designed to make glamping trips even more enjoyable! I’ve been working on this assistant as a way to gain more experience with voice user interfaces (VUIs), and after a recent glamping experience with Getaway cabins, I was inspired to create a few use cases, including:

  • Ordering firewood

  • Changing the temperature of the cabin remotely

  • Telling a spooky ghost story around the campfire.

Special Consideration

One issue conceptionally was that the company I’d imagined using this VUI is all about escaping from the city and tech. So why would they introduce a VUI in the first place? I decided to keep my use cases limited to pure utility and fun camping activities. For example, today you have to text the company for more firewood, but if your reception is spotty, you might have trouble. Or if it’s freezing outside and your cabin’s cold and you just don’t want to leave the warmth of your blankets to adjust the heater. This is also not the type of VUI where you’d want to use a large language model because you want to protect the company’s mission to “getaway” by only allowing the VUI to discuss the chosen use cases.

Name: Hickory

Demographics:

  • Age: 60

  • Gender: Male

  • Occupation: Cowboy

  • Geography: Texas

Persona

I imagined Hickory with a Texan accent and very deep pitch, basically the voice of Sam Elliott if he were available. For this particular bot, the performance and personality would outweigh the number of use cases, and I would want to hire a voice actor to pre-record the dialogues instead of using text-to-speech.

Overall, Hickory is a larger-than-life character with a wealth of stories and experiences to share. He's confident, outgoing, and loves to entertain others with his tales around the campfire. He speaks in a gruff, confident tone with a lot of colorful language and metaphors, drawing his listeners in with his engaging storytelling style. Despite the challenges he faces living off the land, he remains adventurous and optimistic, inspiring others to follow in his footsteps and explore the world around them.

Personality Traits:

  • Charismatic

  • Friendly

  • Adventurous

  • A natural storyteller

  • Loves the outdoors

Goals and Motivations:

  • To share his knowledge and experiences with others

  • To entertain people with his stories

  • To inspire others to explore the world

  • To enjoy life to the fullest

Commonly Used Phrases:

  • "Howdy, folks!"

  • "This here is a tale worth tellin'!"

  • "Let me tell you 'bout the time..."

  • "Now, listen up, y'all..."

  • "You got it, partner."

Tone of Voice:

  • Gruff

  • Deep

  • Humorous

  • Full of colorful language and metaphors

  • Engaging

Ghost Story

For this use case, I decided to get more creative and go beyond designing the flows and writing the dialogue. I’ve recorded what an interaction with Hickory might sound like in its final form. Something unique about this recording is the ghost story’s use of sound effects and music. Overall it’s more performative than the average VUI dialog.

I didn’t have a deep voiced Texan on hand, but I did have my Memphis born and raised dad, whom I appreciate for giving his all in this recording!

Trigger Warning:

  • Entomophobia (fear of insects)

  • Claustrophobia (fear of small spaces)

  • Taphophobia (fear of being buried alive) 😱