In this talk I will walk through our newly developed agile design and development process for voice projects. The talk follows the creation of an e-commerce Alexa app that is one of the first skills to integrate Amazon Pay without account linking. I talk about the struggles of testing voice and the certification process with both Amazon and Google. We also discuss how Alexa and Google Home's fuzzy matching means that the bulk of usability testing should be shifted to after development instead of before. Lastly, we discuss the tweaks that need to be made with regards to communication during voice projects.

1. Amazon Echo & Google Home:
Agile for Voice Products

2. Platforms
Kari Ostevik
Product Manager at TribalScale
Education
Employers/Clients
McGill University
Mechanical Engineering
• Voice (Alexa & Google Home)
• Web
• OTT (tvOS, Roku, FireTV)
@kariostevik

4. Creating a New Era of Innovation |
TribalScale: A Global Innovation Firm
4
Project Services
We build world-class technology
products for corporations and
startups
Transformation Services
We transform corporations to
think and work like leading startups
Venture Studios
We create and co-create, and
drive startup growth
Digital Products Digital Companies

5. Voice

6. Amazon Alexa & Google Home

7. Amazon Alexa Skill & Google Action Development

8. Amazon Alexa Skill Development

9. Demo

10. Building for new platforms is not easy

11. 1. Platform is changing fast
2. No documentation/community
3. My device keeps breaking
4. Reproducing this bug is impossible
5. Publishers waffling
Challenges:

13. Lessons Learned
1. Humility
2. Power of the Pair
3. Ruthless Prioritization
4. Test
Late5. Submit Early

15. Humility

16. Power of the Pair

17. 17
The Power of the Pair
Better Quality CodeProductivity
Scaling Out and
Replacements
Problem Solving
Globally, Less Than 5% of Development Firms Practice These Techniques
Creating a New Era of Innovation |
Communication Skills Knowledge Transfer

18. Ruthless Prioritization

19. Test Late

20. 1. Hard to emulate the real product
2. Hard to predict changes/crossover
3. Higher dimensionality
4. Test early too!
Test Late

21. Submit Early

22. 1. Interaction models need cert
2. Codebase doesn’t
3. Get VUI Review
4. Extra time for Beta features
5. Create a relationship with
Google/Amazon
Submit Early

23. Building for new
platforms is not easy

24. Thank You!
Kari Ostevik, Product Manager
kostevik@tribalscale.com
www.tribalscale.com | @tribalscale