Alexa Voice Design Guide
The Amazon Alexa Skills Kit’s definitive human interface guidelines (Alexa HIG) on designing great voice experiences. Written by yours truly with the help of some great subject matter experts in design and AI at Amazon.
Project:
Create an industry standard voice design guide to build higher quality Alexa Skills.
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Voice design (VUI) is not a new field but Alexa challenges the traditional phone tree model. How do we teach skill builders the basics of conversation and think voice-first?
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When skill builders (self identified as developer/engineers or design agency/freelancers) were asked to rate their abilities to “… Design and write engaging, usable voice interaction dialog.” Participants rated themselves low with an overall rating of 2.98/5.
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User research/surveys
Interview subject matter experts
Write guidance > Send for review (rinse, repeat)
Build docs like code (docs in markdown/yaml/css in a git farm)
Site review & QA
Publish to production pipeline.
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Increased readership and requests for in-person workshops for conferences and events on design.
Writing docs like code
Using git workflows and yaml/markdown in our docs, we had the flexibility of writing our own webpages without the constraints of traditional content management systems.
Teach by example
The design guide and the Alexa Haus AI manual has dialog examples to follow that exemplify each of the categories of voice design that are integral to a great user journey.
