Amazon Alexa Voice Experiences
Today I read a playbook published by Amazon for getting started creating voice experiences for Alexa.
Voice experiences now reach millions of people, across tens of millions of devices, through tens of thousands of skills available in the Alexa Skills Shop.
Skills are basic capabilities like playing music, answering questions, streaming podcasts, and reporting the news, traffic or weather.
As consumer adoption of virtual assistants and smart speakers trends steeply, third parties, especially early-leaning global brands have been building Alexa skills to extend their customer experiences.
For example?
Consumers can now order Starbucks coffee (beta), stream Apple Music, and, purchase anything and everything from Amazon.com. At home, on their smartphone, in their car.
Here is a skinny summary of the guidance in the playbook for how to design, build and launch a new skill …
1. IDEATE
Do you have a clear use-case for your skill?
How does it align with your broader goals?
Does it answer a consumer problem or need?
Is it voice-first? (For example, TTS-ing a website is not voice-first.)
How will you capture learnings to improve the skill over time?
2. DEVELOP SAMPLE SCRIPTS AND USER FLOWS
What is the happy path?
How do users get from Point B to Point C?
Where do they go next?
How do they get back?
What are the exit points?
3. DESIGN THE VUI
The Amazon Alexa Voice Design Guide explains how to develop VUIs from wake-up, to request, to reply, across all modes (speech, text, visual).
読んで 下さい！
https://developer.amazon.com/designing-for-voice/
4. THINK THROUGH YOUR SKILL NAME AND INVOCATION
What is the wake word?
Is it simple and easy to remember?
Is it easy to say?
Do your skill name and wake word match?
Do they set expectations appropriately for the skill?
5. GET YOUR SKILL TESTED AND CERTIFIED
Before you can list a new skill in the store, it must get certified to ensure that it meets all of Amazon's policies on security, functionality. The certification process also includes passing through VI and UE tests.
Amazon maintains a Developer Portal to make it easy.
6. PROMOTE IT
More on that in a later post.
Want to know more?
Start with the Alexa Skills Store.
For the Japan version, click here:
