Alexa Live notes
Tags: alexa, alexalive, conference
Published: 2019-07-10 11:43:24

---
title: Alexa Live notes
published: true
tags: alexa,alexa live,conference
canonical_url: https://www.kinisoftware.com/alexa-live-notes/
---

 ![Alexa Live notes](https://www.kinisoftware.com/content/images/2019/07/AlexaLive_blog.png._CB466630053_.png)

My notes about some sessions from Alexa Live 2019 conference. All info [here](https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/alexa-live)

**[How to shift from screen-first to voice-first design](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYbkCPmP4fA&list=PL--uxpet9vVHS1ev51meJ0zO-76Md6AYS&index=1)**

  - Principles
    - Be adaptable
      - Use lots of utterances and variations
      - Slots and synonymous
    - Be personal
      - Remember user information
      - Context & Situation
      - Think on retention
    - Be relatable
      - Be concise and straight to the point
      - In-skill purchases
    - Be available
      - Voice is everywhere
      - Take the initiative & lead the conversation
      - Don't try to convert a flow chart experience, categories and so on to a voice-fist experience
  - Design artefacts in a canvas - Storyboard ([Adobe XD and Amazon templates](https://github.com/alexa/alexa-cookbook/tree/master/tools/situational-design))
    - Happy path
    - What happens when an user return to your skill
    - Alexa should remember previous information
    - Living documentation

**[Tailor your Alexa skill responses to deliver truly personal experiences](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba6M1Mazk8g&list=PL--uxpet9vVHS1ev51meJ0zO-76Md6AYS&index=2) ([dev blog post](https://developer.amazon.com/es/blogs/alexa/post/144d52ad-25d7-4aa6-a155-9aeeca0406df/tailor-your-alexa-skill-responses-to-deliver-personalized-voice-experiences))**

> The goal is to hide the technology behind the experience and being natural

  - Personal Experience
    - Answer any question only once
    - Preferences should become defaults
    - Context is kept thought sessions
    - Language should feel natural
    - Users feels their experience is unique
  - How would you create a personal experience in Alexa?
    - Memory
      - Session Attributes
        - Example: Different error messages depending on an error counter
      - Persistent Attributes
      - User information
        - Time Zones & Measurements
        - Customer Profile API
        - Account Linking
    - Variety
      - Randomization
      - Contextualization
      - Language adaptation
      - Localization & I18n
    - Localization

**[How to build your first great Alexa skill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8V781C7X1Q&list=PL--uxpet9vVHS1ev51meJ0zO-76Md6AYS&index=3)**

  - Technologies provided by Alexa
    - Speech recognition
    - Machine Learning
    - Natural Language Understanding
    - Text to Speech
  - Understanding the SDK
    - Handlers
  - Turn-by-turn conversation
    - Ask Follow-up questions
    - Auto-delegation
  - Memory
  - Amazon API > Settings API

**[Alexa Skill Developer Tools: Build better skills faster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ_DD9QkwrU&list=PL--uxpet9vVHS1ev51meJ0zO-76Md6AYS&index=4)**

  - Design
    - Core values
      - Unconstrained user input
      - Sequential presentation
      - Ephemeral data
      - Text input is easy
    - Principles
      - Be adaptable
        - In grammar vs out of grammar
      - Be contextual
        - Be careful with random answers
        - Session attributes
      - Be available
        - Wide top level UI, not nested menus
  - Build
    - SMAPI
    - ASK CLI
    - VS Code integration
    - AWS CodeStar
  - Test
    - Test events for Lambda code using JSON from simulator
    - Beta testing
      - Pulselabs
  - Launch
    - Analytics
      - Interaction Path

**[Best practices for testing your Alexa Skills](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_9A5TWCCxc&list=PL--uxpet9vVHS1ev51meJ0zO-76Md6AYS&index=5) ([dev blog post](https://developer.amazon.com/es/blogs/alexa/post/66232175-530c-4f52-890e-60b21db73d84/best-practices-for-testing-your-alexa-skills))**

  - [Bespoken](https://bespoken.io)

> All code is guilty until proven innocent

  - Automation FTW
  - Types of testing
    - Unit testing
    - E2E
    - Continuous testing & monitoring
    - Usability performance testing

**[How to write great dialogs for Alexa Skills](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0mk5pPXdRs&list=PL--uxpet9vVHS1ev51meJ0zO-76Md6AYS&index=6) ([dev blog post](https://developer.amazon.com/es/blogs/alexa/post/9c5f66b0-9514-423a-827e-a2e71a68b456/how-to-write-great-dialogs-for-alexa-skills))**

  - Situational design
  - Brevity is King
  - Storyboard (Amazon templates for Adobe XD)
    - Start with your happy path
  - Be adaptable
  - Be brief
  - Handle confirmations
    - Implicit vs Explicit
  - Avoid voice menus
  - Error recovery > try to prevent errors in the first place!
  - Contextual errors
  - When to say sorry
  - Voice quality
    - SSML, punctuations & grammar rules
    - Split personality