1UP and the Future of Voice

Crowd at the “Voice Make it So” event

On the 6th of April we gathered around 80 people at the @tramperyoldst to discuss the future of Voice Technologies.

The 1UP team (ex-Hoxton Mix Collective) is regularly connecting the corporate world with our community of indie developers to discuss and build innovative solutions to complex business issues.
With the launch of Alexa last year, Voice has become a new channel to interact with consumers so we invited speakers from Opearlo, Google or Amazon to guide us through this topic.

We started the night with Oscar Merry (@MerryOscar) from Opearlo. Oscar and Jess founded Opearlo 2 years ago and have been working on designing Voice interfaces for large clients such as Unilever.
Oscar’s presentation focused on best practices and the lessons learned from building skills on the Alexa platform.

The key take away is that you need to set expectations by making it clear what users can and can’t do with the skill.

Oscar from Opearlo at the “Voice Make it So” event

Our second speaker was Marc Paulina (@MarcPaulina) from Google. Marc is a senior Interaction Designer with experience developing interfaces on Android Apps and for Google Assistant. His presentation detailed the methods used by Google to prototype and design interactions and experiences.

Designing for Google Home is different than for Google Assistant as there isn’t any visual component.

Marc from Google at the “Voice Make it So” event

Our third speaker was Tom Hewitson (@tomhewitson). Tom is a well-known freelancer in the London community as he gave multiple talks around designing conversations for chatbots and for voice apps.
Not a surprise, Tom didn’t use any slides during his presentation but instead demonstrated how Alexa skills could be used in games. He specifically highlighted how Voice was well adapted to brands willing to create gamified experiences.

Live demos of new technologies always fail, but that’s exactly the point and kudos to Tom for pulling it off.

Tom Hewitson at the “Voice Make it So” event

Finally we heard from Dean Bryen (@deanbryen) from Amazon. Dean is a Voice/AI Evangelist and has helped multiple brands across Europe with the launch of their first Alexa skills. His presentation was forward looking and highlighted the different applications of voice in the future of home, cars and IoT.

IoT is emerging as the third wave in the life-cycle of the internet and Voice enabled devices will power revenue generation and consumer engagement.

Dean from Amazon at the “Voice Make it So” event

We closed the evening with a few drinks where our corporate partners mingled with our speakers and the indie developers who joined us.
After a night of predicting the future of voice, we came out confident that our mission to connect people who create innovation and people who need innovation, is essential for our London ecosystem.

If you want to know more on what we do at 1UP get in touch at @1UpThinking or email.

See you soon for another fun night!