Google Assistant voice app

Together with the Dutch Heart Foundation, we built a digital voice assistant that activates users in an accessible way to live a healthier life.

A voice app for Google Assistant that helps you live a healthier life: that's using technology for a practical purpose! Together with the Nederlandse Hartstichting (Dutch Heart Foundation), we built a digital voice assistant that activates users in an accessible way to become fitter.

The Heart Foundation's mission is to reduce cardiovascular disease. Because of this mission, the Heart Foundation often experiments with innovative initiatives. Technological tools that can positively change people's behavior. Similarly, voice. Together with the Dutch Heart Foundation, we have created a Google Assistant voice app that provides personalized advice based on your lifestyle and body mass index (BMI).

The core of the concept is simple: calculate your BMI via the Google Assistant. Based on a number of questions, the voice-activated assistant gives you tips to achieve better values. For example, to exercise more, eat healthier and relax. The voice app offers a very intuitive way of providing information: the interaction with the voice is very natural. You get immediate personal feedback and an action perspective.

The concept of a health coach by means of voice originated from early interviews with potential users. People seem to want to know what they can do to improve their BMI. That is why we have set up the voice app in such a way that people will use it over a longer period of time.

To calculate the BMI data, we have built a number of API calls that fit into the conversation with the voice application in the most natural way possible. To achieve this, we have helped the Hartstichting from our experiences with Google Assistant to write small dialogues for various use cases.

"By fine-tuning with the developers of Q42 and testing a lot, the conversation is kept as natural as possible."

Thessely Juliet, online marketer Dutch Heart Foundation

As with our other voice projects, the power of this new voice-activated assistant lies in a relevant, simple use. By doing several small iterations based on feedback, we have learned in which situation voice really helps the end user. Read more about how this product development came about in our interview with the Hartstichting (in Dutch).