Hymer Connect
make the motorhome experience easier
AKEKUKU box, François Rollin
Shytech with immediate hilarious feedback
Here are some questions raised by this experience
keep reading to find part of the answers
Do we really need traditional KPIs like market research, ergnonomy and meaningfullness to create smart products?
Can artificial intelligence help operate stupid products?
Précédent
Suivant
Project AKEKUKU box
release DATE 1989
MATURITY LEVEL concept & FICTION
developed by canal + team
Designed by François Rollin
Today’s article is a clear proof that smart speakers Alexa echo and Google home reused the french creative design from the 90s TV show. Silicon Valley designers copied 100% of the simple wearable design and the easy-to-understand keyword. AKEKUKU box is a voice-controlled smart product for which a key sentence initiates a sequence of artistic, cinematic and audio feedback. The AKEKUKU box belongs to the family of gadgets that are sophisticated and ingenious systems to be « the most helpful device » This innovative setup is becoming so famous that a wikipedia article is dedicated to it. You can also get an android app or get a real AKEKUKU box as a gadget.
Shytech with immediate hilarious feedback
experiential setup
User identifiation
Stepper motor
Media player
Voice command
experience epics
The object is a small wood box that completely hides embedded functionalities and technology.
use case
Control a shy-tech black box with voice
The object is a small wood box that completely hides embedded functionalities and technologies. For sure this design from the 90s TV show paid the emergence of smart speakers with the same simple design, invisible mic, and natural material.
use case
Facilitate the user interaction with easy-to-sat/easy-to-understand keyword
Both Alexa and AKEKUKU box have chosen a keyword with a specific phonetics. Alexa with the « X » that is easy to recognize with a hard consonant invented in 2014. « Ah, que Coucou » (french in the text) pronounce « AKEKUKU » is a 4 phonemes keyword with 3 recognizable « K », hard consonants! It’s a strong mistake for Alexa not to have chosen AKEKKUKU as a keyword avoided, that would have made the AI for recognition easier and avoided annoying people all « Alexa » consonant person in the world. As far as we know nobody has AKEKUKU as a first name.
use case
Gentle scenarisation
Just after the voice command, a white egg is pops up from the black box creating a very nice contrast. Simultenaoul the box is generating an audible « coucou » refering either to a swiss clockwall or a childgame (epicnpoc experts are still debating about it). Th efull scene does not take more than 1 second.
use case
That's all
Just after the quick use case 1, things are going back to normal creating a surprise that so many technologies only last for so short moment. The user understands the magic of the smart product forcing himself to consider the stupidity and useless of life. The AKEKUKU box from this point of view is a zen smart product with the highest degree of wiseness.
The single usage of the object pushes the user to repeat the epic 1 and epic 2
use case
Limitation to single usage product
The product reacts to a single keyword where we expect the voice control to support much more commands and functionalities.
use case
Limitation to a single user
The voice control seems to react to a single person since we’ve not seen anybody else than Johnny Haliday controlling it. The individualization of the usage increases the strange magic of the object. To be 100% honest the user recognition could also be provided by the choice of the keyword as nobody else than Johny Hallyday says « AKEKUKU »
You worked on this project? Any comment or request?
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Exploration report
Techinnov 2022, Paris
AKEKUKU box, François Rollin
Shytech with immediate hilarious feed-back
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