Wayside
A voice-first assistant that helps delivery drivers find a bathroom, a short rest, or a safe place to stop without searching through a map while driving.
- Role
- Product design and engineering
- Disciplines
- Product design, Flutter engineering, Backend and voice systems
Context
A delivery driver can be minutes from a bathroom and still have no useful way to know if they will be allowed inside. Maps show what is nearby. They do not show if the lobby is open, if a purchase is required, or if there is somewhere safe to park.
Insight
More search results would not help much. The driver needed to say what they needed, hear one or two options ahead, and know if access had been checked before leaving the route.
System
The spoken request becomes a search along the current route. Wayside ranks a small number of places, calls when access needs to be checked, and returns the detour and any condition with the result.
How the prototype works
The prototype uses Flutter, FastAPI, server-sent events, and a controlled Twilio call flow. The phone interface receives progress and results from a small API, so the verification process is not buried inside the screen.
Decisions
- Start with voice
The driver can ask without typing or working through a list.
- Keep the result list short
Two good options are easier to act on than a directory of places the driver still has to investigate.
- Say what the condition is
If access requires a purchase or the answer is still unknown, the result says so.
- Write it ourselves
We wrote the hackathon build directly so we could understand every request, stream, and phone call under time pressure.
Experience
Reflection
The controlled demo worked, including the streamed request and a real verification call to a controlled phone. The harder part comes after the demo: keeping place information current, checking safety, and giving businesses a reason to participate. Reliable coverage would require a much larger operational system.