Echo — Voice-First Shopping Assistant

Echo reimagines online shopping as a conversational experience for blind and low-vision users. Instead of navigating visually dense product pages, users can simply speak to Echo to discover products, compare prices and ratings, ask how a product looks, add items to their cart, apply coupons, and complete checkout. Echo is designed around accessibility from the beginning, with voice interaction, screen-reader support, and minimal dependence on pointer-based navigation. Product appearance is represented through structured information such as colors, patterns, fit, sleeves, neckline, texture, and overall style, allowing the assistant to describe products without inventing visual details. Behind the conversation, Echo uses AssemblyAI for real-time voice interaction, an LLM with tool calling, and an Express + MongoDB backend that validates every shopping action. The AI can request an action, but the backend confirms whether it actually happened. Checkout also requires explicit user confirmation. The result is a shopping experience built around conversation rather than visual navigation — making discovery, decision-making, and purchasing accessible through a natural voice interaction.