Voice Technology is something I am really interested in and in the spirit of learning I came up with the idea of creating a simple game where users can have the chance to play against a non-human entity. This time I came up with the idea of designing a paper rock scissors game for Alexa.
Client
Side project of my own
Year
2020
Deliverables
- Script
- User Flow
- Interaction Model
- Alexa Skill
The challenge
How to create a simple rock paper scissors game where users get the chance to play against Alexa?
The Design Process
- Scripting the dialog and overall man to machine experience
- Character illustration
- Design a voice prototype
- Build the game flow using Skill Flow Builder
- Build the intents and sample utterances
- Deploy the skill
Design and Implementation Toolkit
The tools, technology and artifacts chosen for the task at hand.
Adobe XD
Illustrator
Scripting
Skill Flow Builder
Alexa Developer Console
Character Design
Scripting the experience
Using a script allow us to understand the conversation flow and the way humans naturally talk to anyone. It also uncovers synonyms and different phrases a user might say to invoke the same action. The script is the starting point to design for a natural conversation, and that’s exactly what we are aiming for.
Quick Prototype with Visuals
Once the dialog and conversational flow had been mapped out I designed the conversational interaction as a voice prototype.
Implementation
The prototype is later translated to Skill Flow Builder in the format of a script or storyline. On Skill Flow Builder the storyline can be directly published and deployed as an Alexa Skill. No code needed whatsoever.
Interaction Model
I defined a custom interaction model. The interaction model is the first step to define the voice interface through which users would interact with the game. To define the voice interface, I mapped users’ spoken input to intents.
Intents
Intents represent actions in the game logic that fulfills a user’s spoken request during the game.
Utterances
Utterances are a set of likely spoken phrases mapped to the intents. This includes as many phrases mapped on the script and conversational flow as possible.
Deploying Skill for several languages at once
Since I wanted the skill to work for both spanish and english speaking audiences I modified the translation file to include both languages. I only needed to modify the storyline on the translation file and then publish it directly as an Amazon Skill .
Thanks!
I hope you enjoyed and learn something out of this case. If you liked the content feel free to share. If interested in learning more or if you have a question about the topic you can contact me.