Voice user interfaces have more and more impact on our daily lives: on our mobile phones, in our homes and in offices. The techniques and metaphors of graphical user interfaces do not apply to the world of voice. VUI design must be based on the "conversation", the first communication system we have learned and also the one we know best. Alessandra Petromilli (CXO) and Federico Baron (Software Architect) will guide you through the challenges related to the design and development with node.js of Alexa Skills starting from the use case "Filastrocche delle Buona Notte" designed and developed for Giunti Editore.

1. Design and Develop
Alexa Skills
Alessandra Petromilli and Federico Baron
Rome | March 22 - 23, 2019

2. Alessandra
Petromilli
CXO, I drive the User Experience
Strategy and Teams at ibuildings
Italia
@aleanan

3. Federico
Baron
Principal Solution Architect at
ibuildings Italia
Find me on Linkedin!

4. User
Under the hood
Device FulfillmentArtificial
Intelligence

5. Filastrocche della buona
notte

6. The purest
design
challenge

7. Communication

8. The process
Goal Definition
Personas
and User
Stories
Script and
Conversation
Flow
Usability Testing

9. Goal Definition
Customer
Development
Interviews
Cindy Alvarez

10. Francesca
and Luigi
Beatrice
Target users –
personas

11. La
cantastorie
The Storyteller
system
personas

12. Define Context
user stories

13. Utente: Alexa apri Filastrocche della buona notte
Alexa: Ciao, con Filastrocche della buona notte possiamo ascoltare
insieme delle belle filastrocche! Posso suggerirtene alcune io, puoi
chiedermi tu un titolo preciso tra quelli disponibili sull'app o puoi
ascoltare tutta la collezione dall'inizio alla fine. Vuoi ascoltare la luna,
Guido il Ghiro o il sole?

14. Interactions

15. Interactions
Conversation
Flow

16. Interactions
Conversation Flow
Launch
request
First
run?
Welcome to text
(introduce your skill)
Welcome to text
(introduce your
skill)
Welcome to text
(introduce your
skill)
< intent > Nursery
rhyme suggested
by alexa
< intent > Nursery
rhyme suggested
by the user
< intent > play all
(audio player
mode)
Help
yes
no

17. Intent and utterances
https://www.utterance-generator.com/

18. Utterances Generator
https://www.utterance-generator.com/

19. Teaming up

20. Teaming up
put your
ego aside

21. Curiosity

22. Technology is not somebody
else’s problem

23. Feedbacks

24. Feedbacks
Test di
usabilità

25. Voice X
Anil Kumar Krishnashetty
founder of Berlin Lean
Prototyping

26. What we
should not
forget

27. User control
and freedom
EXIT

28. Flexibility
and
efficiency of use

29. Help documentation
and error recovery

30. Always
expect the
unexpected

31. Developer console:
define the interaction
model using the web
application

32. Let’s start!
Register to Amazon developers and open
your Alexa Developer Console
• Web console to create and
manage the lifecycle of your
skills
• UI to configure skill's manifest
and models
• Browser test environment
(device simulator)
• Certification process
management
• Analytics

33. Use the web GUI to setup you
interaction model

34. Interaction model:
use Alexa’s built-in
elements as much as you
can

35. Some built-in elements you can take
advantage of defining your model
• built-in intents (AMAZON.YesIntent,
AMAZON.NextIntent, AMAZON.RepeatIntent, …)
• built-in slot types (AMAZON.Date,
AMAZON.Number, AMAZON.City, …)
• use dialog model to delegate to Alexa a multi-
turn conversation with the user

36. Sample Utterances
• reproduce flexibility and variation of spoken
language in the real world
• add utterances to start interaction ("Alexa, ask
Daily Horoscopes for/about/to")
• it is better to provide too many samples than to
provide too few
• tools to generate utterances (ex. amazon-echo-
utterance-expander)

37. Back-end:

38. One minute setup with AWS
lambda and NodeJs
• Log in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to AWS
Lambda.
• Create new Lamda function
• Define a role for the function from “Simple Microservice” permissions
template
• Add and Configure the Alexa Skills Kit Triggers (insert skill-id)
• Add Lambda endpoint (arn) to the skill

39. resource "aws_iam_role" "my-skill-role" {
name = "my-skill-role"
assume_role_policy = <<EOF
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
"Principal": {
"Service": "lambda.amazonaws.com"
},
"Effect": "Allow",
"Sid": ""
}
]
}
EOF
}
resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "my-skill-role-policy-dynamo-att" {
role = "${aws_iam_role.my-skill-role.name}”
policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess"
}
resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "my-skill-role-policy-lambda-att" {
role = "${aws_iam_role.my-skill-role.name}”
policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole"
}

40. resource "aws_lambda_function" "my-skill-lambda" {
filename = "index.zip"
function_name = "my-skill-name"
role = "${aws_iam_role.my-skill-role.arn}”
handler = "src/index.handler"
runtime = "nodejs8.10"
}
resource "aws_lambda_permission" "my-skill-lambda-perm" {
statement_id = "AllowExecutionFromAlexa"
action = "lambda:InvokeFunction"
function_name = "${aws_lambda_function.my-skill-lambda.function_name}”
principal = "alexa-appkit.amazon.com"
event_source_token = "${var.skill-id}"
}

41. move to a comfortable
development environment
• ask init (setup cli tool linking
Amazon Developer and AWS
accounts)
• ask clone
• ask deploy

42. Development:

43. Simple introduction to NodeJS sdk
const Alexa = require('ask-sdk’);
// …
exports.handler = Alexa.SkillBuilders.standard()
.addResponseInterceptors(SavePersistentAttributesResponseInterceptor)
.addRequestHandlers(
LaunchRequestHandler,
PlayRhymeHandler,
PlayRandomHandler,
ReplayHandler,
PreviousHandler,
PlayAllHandler,
AudioPlayerEventHandler,
ResumeHandler,
YesHandler,
NoHandler,
HelpHandler,
SessionEndedHandler,
ExitHandler
)
.addErrorHandlers(ErrorHandler)
.withTableName('my-skill-table')
.withAutoCreateTable(true)
.lambda();

44. Simple introduction to NodeJS sdk
// ...
const PlayRhymeHandler = {
canHandle(handlerInput) {
// Conditions to determine the requests this handler can handle
const request = handlerInput.requestEnvelope.request;
return request.type === ‘IntentRequest’
&& request.intent.name === ‘PlayRhymeIntent’;
},
handle(handlerInput, error) {
// Execution logic for the handler
return handlerInput.responseBuilder
.speak(‘Mi dispiace ma questa filastrocca non è presente. Vuoi che te ne
suggerisca una io?’)
.reprompt(‘Vuoi che te ne suggerisca una io?’)
.getResponse();
},
};
// ...

45. The importance of “session”
for a voice app
• The skill session continues as the user speaks to
Alexa and your skill responds to Alexa
• The skill session ends when the user fails to
respond (8 seconds plus 8 more if re-prompt is
specified) or when the skill sets the
shouldEndSession property to true
• Once you are out of the session, you must invoke
the skill by saying something, such as "Alexa, open
[skill's invocation name]"

46. Using attributes
Saving the skill state is really important in order to
personalize the user experience and to implement multi-turn
conversations
Session attributes
• maintaned during the session
• Ex. store the request’s history to implement multi-turn
conversation
Persistent attributes
• persisted on database
• Ex. store last interaction date

47. Certification:

48. a very helpful feedback
• follow the submission checklist
• write Testing Instructions to help the
validation team

49. Thank you!