A quick guide on how to start designing voice applications (Skills for Amazon Alexa and Actions for Google Home) Presentation was done during Create For Voice meetup (Cracow, 17th July 2018) www.upsidelab.io

1. Kasia Ryniak
kasia@upsidelab.io
@katiryniak
How to
start designing
voice app

2. We’re designing
vocal interaction

3. The process of
designing voice app

4. Looks familiar?
discover define
detail
describerefine
develop

5. Step 1:
Discover

6. discover define
detail
describerefine
develop

7. Goal: to understand

8. Value
How will it provide value to my customers?
Why will people want to use it?
What users can get from the voice app that
they can’t get through different channel?

9. User Situation/
Context
What will the person be doing before,
during and after interacting with
application?
Where will the user be when using the
application?
What will his/her situation be?

10. Placeonas by Bill Buxton

11. Where the customer is
&
how he/she interacts with a piece of technology

12. Placeonas by Bill Buxton
hands eyes ears voice
in a library free free free restricted
cooking busy free free free
nightclub free free restricted restricted
driving busy busy free free

13. Industry/Market
What’s the industry/market like?
What are the main challenges this industry/
market is facing?
How can it provide unique value for my industry?

14. Relations
Is it a standalone application, one more
touchpoint with my customers or application
that connects to other devices?

15. Step 2:
Define

16. discover define
detail
describerefine
develop
What it gives?
• overview of value and
industry
• defined user situation
• defined product
dependencies and
connections

17. Goal: what is does and how it feels

18. Creating personality

19. Creating personality
Voice:
- male, female or kid?
- cheerful or steady?
- matching the brand?
Tone of interaction:
- professional or funny?
- what wording?
- making jokes?
- how will interact when
doesn’t understand?
- how will great the users?
- how will goodbye the users?
Invocation name:
- correspond with brand?
- brand hero?
- separate from brand?

20. Captain Kate Blackwater
Voice:
- adult female
- strict, direct
- “cold” voice
Tone of interaction:
- professional
- army-alike
Invocation name:
“Computer, ask Captain
Matching the context:
- using game slang
- addresses player as “Marshall”

21. Creating first capabilities

22. Step 3:
Detail

23. discover define
detail
describerefine
develop
What it gives?
• overview of value and
industry
• defined user situation
• defined product
dependencies and
connections
What it gives?
• personality of the
assistant
• draft of first/core
capabilities

24. Goal: to create interaction scenarios

25. Voice
assistants
are not
humans.
Duh.
But users tend to forget that ;)

26. Voice application
Are really bad in
handling complexity
Sorry, I don’t
know what you
mean by that
Work linear
Sorry, I didn’t
get what you
mean
Have a limited number
of capabilities
Sorry, I can’t
do that

27. Creating scenarios
voice application
for Harvest,
time tracking tool

28. Creating scenarios
1. Happy Path
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing Upside for
software development”
“Started billing
Upside for software
development”
“Alexa, tell Time
Tracker to stop billing”
“OK, I stopped
billing”

29. Creating scenarios
2. Challenges
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing Upside”
Problem: user do not
provide Alexa with
complete information

30. Creating scenarios
2. Challenges
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing Upside”
“What task would
you like to bill?”
“Software
developement”
“OK, I started billing
Upside for software
development””

31. Creating scenarios
2. Challenges
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing Upsodipo”
Problem: device can’t
understand what the
user is saying

32. Creating scenarios
2. Challenges
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing
Upsodipo”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t
get that. Could you
repeat?”
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing Upside
for design”
“OK, I started
billing Upside for
design”

33. Creating scenarios
2. Challenges
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing
Facebook for design”
Problem: application
don’t know how to
perform

34. Creating scenarios
2. Challenges
“Alexa, tell Time Tracker
to start billing
Facebook for design”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a
project matching that
name. Would you like to
bill another project?”
“Ok, so let’s start billing
Upside for design
“OK, I started
billing Upside for
design”

35. Step 4:
Describe

36. discover define
detail
describerefine
develop
What it gives?
• overview of value and
industry
• defined user situation
• defined product
dependencies and
connections
What it gives?
• personality of the
assistant
• draft of first/core
capabilities
What it gives?
• first scenarios of
application
behaviour

37. Goal: to extend scenarios with how
people really speak

38. How would you ask for a coffee?

39. Can I have a coffee?
Could you make me a coffee?
Coffee please.
Large cappuccino with soy milk please.
The same as usual.
Can I have one Brasilia?
etc.
Right now we need to teach our skill
how people can ask for things

40. Intent
an action executed by an app
Utterance
a phrase that evokes Intent
“Alexa, start
billing Upside for
Project
Management”
“Ok, started
billing”

41. Coming up with alternate phrases
“Alexa, start billing (project) for (task)”
Start tracking
Start timer
Start counting time
Launch timer
Begin billing
Begin tracking
+ {slot for project} + {slot for task}

43. Step 5:
Refine

44. discover define
detail
describerefine
develop
What it gives?
• overview of value and
industry
• defined user situation
• defined product
dependencies and
connections
What it gives?
• personality of the
assistant
• draft of first/core
capabilities
What it gives?
• first scenarios of
application
behaviour
What it gives?
• extended list of
scenarios

45. Goal: to test, prototype, iterate

46. “Alexa, tell
Dominium to
order a pizza”
Use humans to test
“What pizza
would you like
to have?”

47. Use tools to prototype
GetStoryline.com GoVocal.AI

48. and iterate!

49. discover define
detail
describerefine
develop
What it gives?
• overview of value and
industry
• defined user situation
• defined product
dependencies and
connections
What it gives?
• personality of the
assistant
• draft of first/core
capabilities
What it gives?
• first scenarios of
application
behaviour
What it gives?
• extended list of
scenarios
What it gives?
• new information

50. 4 fundaments of
successful VUI

51. 1. Don’t overload users with features
2. Examples work better than
instructions
3. Keep is clean and short
4. Assume it’ll fail

52. Questions?

53. a software development agency
specialises in creating
applications for voice platforms
www.upsidelab.io
And btw, this is us:

54. Follow us:
@UpsideLab
@CreateForVoice
www.upsidelab.io
we build for voice