The One Railway virtual assistant is a help function based on the Lingubot solution from Creative Virtual. It is a tool to help users find answers in a quick and friendly way.
The original concept was based around a fictional Flash character but it was quickly agreed to change tactics and base the character of a real person. We named the final character "Valerie" (Virtual Assistant London Eastern Railway - Interactive Expert).
A One Railway employee Dionne Mobbs volunteered as model and from her photos I illustrated the various elements of Valerie's face so they could be animated separately to convey the eight basic emotions (happy, excited, polite, friendly, neutral, sarcastic, serious and upset) the system comes with.
As of the 27th February 2008 One Railway has become National Express East Anglia and the virtual assistant is now offline.
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