Alexa, open Ecovidrio

Alexa, open Ecovidrio (2019)

🎯 Goal and client

With this voice experience, the main goal of Ecovidrio, the nonprofit that manages glass recycling in Spain, is to raise awareness about glass recycling in the country, share fun facts and report how much is recycled in any town, province or region. The data is up to date as of 2018.

💬 Voice interaction

Say “Alexa, abre Ecovidrio” and you’ll learn something new about glass recycling. Name any city, province or region in Spain to find out how much was recycled there in 2018. You can also say which recycling figure you want to know: glass containers, kilograms, population and so on.

You can also ask straight away for a fun fact with: “Alexa, pregunta a Ecovidrio por un dato curioso” (“ask Ecovidrio for a fun fact”).
If you want to know how much is recycled where you live, for example in Madrid, you can also say: “Alexa, pregunta a Ecovidrio cuánto se recicla en Madrid” (“ask Ecovidrio how much is recycled in Madrid”).

🤖 Channel

Amazon Alexa. A conversational experience for devices without a screen (voice-first) and with a screen.

🌍 Reach: languages and countries.

Available in every country that uses Alexa in Spanish from Spain (es-ES).

💻 Which technologies and libraries did we use?

Amazon Alexa features:

APL to show images on devices with a screen.

💎 How did we build this voice app?

We did the product design together with Ecovidrio. The challenge was designing the conversational experience for questions about how much is recycled in a given place, since it involves disambiguation and slot filling techniques. We also built the Alexa skill, connecting it to the glass recycling data provided, and ran quality testing and beta tests with users.

We took care over turn-taking with Alexa and built a conversational experience that holds up to the many different ways Alexa users express themselves.

🗓 Key dates

06/01/2019: Soft launch. Days spent improving the model that understands users (NLU).
06/05/2019: Official launch. The skill was recommended in Alexa’s “good morning” message, for World Environment Day.

🔗 More information

In the Spanish Amazon Alexa store, amazon.es.
Ecovidrio, page 97 of its 2019 Sustainability Report (in Spanish).
Ecovidrio’s social media, for World Environment Day.
How to recycle and care for the environment with the help of assistants like Alexa, El Periódico, 12/20/2019 (in Spanish).