Project

Alexa, open Lingokids

Learning English with Lingokids and Alexa: listen to all the songs, podcasts and stories.

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Lingokids - Alexa Skill

Alexa, open Lingokids (2022)

At Monoceros Labs we built, for Lingokids, a Spanish company specializing in digital English content for children, one of the skills preinstalled in the Amazon Kids profile and available on every Alexa device. Just by saying “Alexa, open Lingokids”, kids can access 240 free educational activities in English, as songs and podcasts on different topics. While having fun, they learn not only English but “in English,” covering academic skills as well as values and social skills.

🤖 Channel

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

💬 How it works

  1. Enable the Alexa skill (with Amazon Kids or on its own). Once you’ve enabled the Lingokids skill, simple commands do the rest! To start, say “Alexa, open Lingokids.”

  2. Once the Lingokids skill is running, you can have a conversation with Alexa to play your favorite episodes and songs. You can say “I want to dance,” “learn,” “sing” or “I want a story,” and a personalized playlist starts playing.

  3. Every time you ask for a story or a song, Lingokids plays a different set of its latest content in a new playlist.

  4. How can you control Alexa’s audio features?

  • Pause: “Alexa, stop”
  • Resume: “Alexa, continue”
  • Next song: “Alexa, next”
  • Previous song: “Alexa, previous”
  • Volume up/down: “Alexa, volume up,” “Alexa, volume down.”
  • Repeat: “Alexa, repeat”
  • Get help: “Help” (this command only works while the Alexa skill is running)

*Commands may vary depending on the device and language settings.

🌍 Reach: languages and countries.

Available in every country that uses Alexa in:

  • Spanish from Spain (es-ES), Mexico (es-MX) and the United States (es-US).
  • English
  • French
  • Italian

Note: All the content remains in English, but the interactions with Alexa work in Spanish, Italian and French.

💻 Which technologies and libraries did we use?

Amazon Alexa features:

  • APL-A for the audio experience,
  • APL for the full multimodal experience on devices with a screen, including the home screens and touch selection of quiz answers.

💎 How did we build this voice app?

We built the product together with Lingokids. We conceptualized and defined the minimum viable experience around the existing content: videos, podcasts and so on. We also designed the conversational experience and built the Alexa skill around the content. We went through several product iterations, each with beta testing with users and the resulting lessons and improvements.

🗓 Key dates

  • 09/09/2022: Soft launch. Days spent improving the model that understands users (NLU).
  • 10/05/2022: Official launch with the Amazon Kids program.

🔗 More information

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