How Technology Helped Building A Meaningful Gift Experience
To get everyone in the holiday spirits, we asked Nicolas Grenié, a Developer Advocate at Typeform, to write about the really cool puzzle he put together using different technologies to surprise his wife for the holiday. We hope you enjoy the tale as much as we did ☺️
As we are entering the Holiday season, and everything around us is starting to adorn itself with red, white, and green, I want to take a moment to tell you a modern Christmas tale. But first, call dibs on grandma’s rocking chair, place it near the fireplace, tuck yourself in your favorite plaid, and pour yourself some hot cocoa. You can even drop some tiny marshmallows in it. It will be our little secret.
To be honest, this is not exactly a Christmas tale, but more a *cuento de Reyes *like people call it in Spain, where my wife is originally from. In Spain, people celebrate more the Epiphany or Three Kings Day (Dia de Los Reyes) than Christmas. It’s very similar and respects a traditional end-of-year holiday triptych: a family gathering, too much food, and presents for all. Every year I join my wife and her family to celebrate this special day together.
So on the 6th day of 2020, full of insouciance about the year to come, bellies packed with exquisite jamon and bubbly cava, it was finally time to gather the whole family around the tree and open presents. The younger ones were tearing shiny wrappings joyfully, unveiling many trucks and dolls. Surprisingly, a mystery box was still untouched. It had my wife’s name on it: Rebeca.
As she started opening it, all the shouting stopped, as everyone watched, young and old, in monastic silence. *‘What was in the box?’ *It was nothing they had ever seen before. There was an assortment of differently shaped pieces of various colors along with a tiny post-it note.
I don’t know if you like puzzles, but my wife adores them! And it looked like the Kings’ elves played a trick on her. On the post-it, she could see scribbled drawings of a Puzzle piece, an End sign, a Camera, and a Phone. What would you understand if you saw such rebus? It was probably not as crucial as Archimedes’ discovery, but my wife shouted *Eureka *when she understood what the scribble meant: solve the puzzle first and then take your phone out to take a picture.
Everyone quickly made room at the dinner table. Pushed the dirty plates and flutes away, this puzzle was a serious business. After a couple of minutes, every piece of the puzzle found its place in the masterpiece.
It looks oddly familiar. As the post-it instructed, my wife diligently took her phone out and aimed at the finished puzzle, ready to discover what’s next.
At this point in the story, I want to pause and take a moment to thank the engineers, designers, and everyone at Apple that contributed to building the iPhone, an incredible piece of hardware. Thanks to their sense of detail and craftsmanship, they gave life to this scrappy homemade puzzle and turned it into an interactive object.
The iPhone camera detected the QR code pointing, which pointed to a URL hosted on Glitch. There was still no sign of an actual present. Eventually, the URL on the Glitch app redirected to a typeform with another enigmatic message.
Looks like elves were jokesters. The whole family, five adults and three kids, were now gathered around the table, curious to discover the next part of the puzzle. The typeform asked the first riddle: If you are running in a race and pass the person in second place, what position are you in?
The group agreed on the same answer in a snap! “Of course! You become first! So easy! Next!” And they moved on to the next question. Excited, they responded quickly and unanimously, as I expected, and they quickly moved to the remaining riddles. The second was a popular one on Twitter at the time: Someone's mom has four sons North, East and West. What is the name of the fourth son. Can you guess the name of the fourth son?
And the final one came from a riddle site for kids:
Black inside Black outside So as my heart Black wood Who am I?
You should have seen their face when the typeform said: “Whoops, you only have 0 correct answers... Start over.” *The elves were definitively the sneaky kind and didn’t make it easy. *The adults sat down. They started getting out pens and papers to draw things and put their heads together, trying hard to figure out where and how they went wrong. They were at it for more than an hour, trying one possibility after another.
In this whole din, no one noticed that my 9-year old nephew, Victor, had found all the correct answers on his own. However, no one stopped to look up and hear him out. Only after they had run out of options, they turned, meekishly, to the little one. And when they realized that the typeform accepted his answers - all 3 - as correct, the tenor of excitement suddenly changed direction to him.
Until the iPhone rang and an SMS popped on the screen. There were muffled grumblings wondering if it was another puzzle. The text message only contained a link. It opened a Wallet file. Finally the end! Indeed! It was tickets to see KISS End of the Road World Tour at the Oracle Arena in Oakland.
Sure, I could have just printed these tickets out and handed it to my wife in an envelope—a bow and wrapping paper around for the sake of anticipation. But we would not have had this family experience, where everybody contributed and participated. This experience created lifetime memories for all the people in the room. Of course, the concert was a blast! The show was on March 6th. On March 7th, the Shelter In Place started in the Bay Area. This concert is the last anything we attended in 2020.
Technology does not need to be all serious; it can also spark joy around you and give life to the silliest ideas you may have. I hope you can explore those ideas and build more meaningful hacks!
*Check out this tutorial on the Twilio blog to learn how this gift was put together! Here are the answers to the riddles: second, What, an olive.