Conversational agent for Railway enquiry
An enquiry kiosk prototype that uses voice technology to answer natural language queries about Trains to destination, timings, platform numbes etc., in Hindi using Google assistant.
"I think this is a good utility to convert an otherwise tedious task into a more easy, everyday activity, so yes I do like the idea of such an agent"
Abhishek
Passenger since 2012
This is an masters design project where we can choose our own problem and address it thorugh design. In January 2020 I was travelling to varanasi and I noticed in the railway station
that there is a long queue in the enquiry counter and it took time for me to get a simple answer. While I could have downloaded an app to get my question answered there are lots of apps related to each
category(Booking, platform, where is my train etc.,) with different information architecture in each app but face-to-face enquiry allows passengers to talk to an human and get meaningful answers.
The Goal: Disseminating information which was available both at platform and on personal mobile devices through an Conversational Agent(VUI) allowing natural mode of inteaction using voice.
Duration: Jan'20 - May'20
My Role: Conversation Design + UX Design
Key Skills: User interviews
Concept ideation
Interaction design
Visual design
Prototyping
The Solution: As a result I came up with an voice assistant that runs on mobile phones(Google assistant) by recognising user's request in Hindi and responds in natural language combined with the live database of indian railways.
The train information like timings, train number, departure & destination for a single day are put in a spreadsheet which is connected to the
Trains to destination + Add reminder
Multiple trains to a destination
Train is delayed
Physical Kiosk at the station
Context change