How We Harnessed AI's Infinite Creativity to Make Bedtime a Little Easier
What We Did
When Generative AI took the world by storm, we knew our clients would lean on us to help them explore its possibilities. We released Nella, an AI-powered mobile app, to put ourselves through the rigor of creating a product with these new, fast-moving technologies and develop expertise to support our clients.
It started when one of the parents among us threw out an anecdotal frustration — a child who insists on "one more story", again, and again, and again. That got us thinking... Could we leverage artificial intelligence to create an interactive and personalized never-ending storybook?
How to Write a Good Story(Book App)
After rounds of brainstorming and focus groups, we landed on some core values and differentiators that we knew would make our app stand out:
Parents and Children Co-Creating
The experience was designed to foster connection during the creation process, not to outsource parenting to your phone.
Favorite Characters, Settings, and Themes
Kids can get fixated on specific subjects and only want to read about that - stories about puppies, or space, or dinosaurs, or music. Nella needed to be able to tell a child "another story about [fill in the blank]."
Imaginative and Playful Imagery
With custom and infinite stories came custom and infinite imagery. Bright colors and big images were a must for this audience.
Keep it Age Appropriate
The Generative AI needed to use age-appropriate language and themes to make it a safe and enjoyable experience.
Privacy and Security
In order to achieve the age rating that we wanted, we became experts on privacy laws regarding apps for children, and designed an experience that excludes the use of personally identifiable information.
Promotional Website
interactive style guide
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The Technology
Chat GPT
After exploring other options, we landed on ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo, which was the best LLM at the time, providing creative content in an efficient and cost effective way.
Prompt Engineering
We refined prompts iteratively to ensure our inputs generated engaging, age-appropriate content. By testing and tailoring prompts, we guided the LLM to align with Nella's playful tone, avoid unintended themes, and prioritize educational value.
Stable Diffusion
Nella's aesthetic relied on bold, beautiful imagery that we knew would resonate with children. Stable Diffusion's API gave us the most control over tone, color, and size to maintain that aesthetic consistently. It also supported negative prompts to avoid things that weren't fitting for the story or appropriate for our young audience.
AWS Cognito
This made it easy for users to quickly sign-in with their Apple or Google accounts.
Perspective
To deliver on our age rating, we used Perspective to catch and block any inappropriate words - either generated by the LLM or entered via open text field.
React Native
We specialize in React, and React Native allowed us a singular codebase for both iOS and Android platforms, making it a simple decision.
Be Your Own Test Subject
The opportunities that new technologies like artificial intelligence afford are exciting to pursue, but can also be daunting. Nella was an opportunity to immerse ourselves in something new before our clients were ready for it. We wrangled new tech, learned lessons, and failed forward so we can approach client work in the AI space with knowledge and expertise.