Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant

Book excerpt: Summary Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant is your guide to designing, building, and implementing voice-based applications for Alexa and Google Assistant. Inside, you'll learn how to build your own "skills"—the voice app term for actions the device can perform—from scratch. Foreword by Max Amordeluso. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. You'll find registration instructions inside the print book. About the Technology In 2018, an estimated 100 million voice-controlled devices were installed in homes worldwide, and the apps that control them, like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, are getting more powerful, with new skills being added every day. Great voice apps improve how users interact with the web, whether they're checking the weather, asking for sports scores, or playing a game. About the Book Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant is your guide to designing, building, and implementing voice-based applications for Alexa and Google Assistant. You'll learn to build applications that listen to users, store information, and rely on user context, as you create a voice-powered sleep tracker from scratch. With the basics mastered, you'll dig deeper into multiuse conversational flow and other more-advanced concepts. Smaller projects along the way reinforce your new techniques and best practices. What's inside Building a call-and-response skill Designing a voice user interface Using conversational context Going multimodal Tips and best practices About the Reader Perfect for developers with intermediate JavaScript skills and basic Node.js skills. No previous experience with voice-first platforms is required. About the Author Dustin A. Coates is a developer who focuses on voice and conversational applications. He's currently the voice search lead at Algolia and is also a Google Developers Expert for Assistant as well as cohost of the VUX World podcast. Table of Contents Introduction to voice first Building a call-and-response skill on Alexa Designing a voice user interface Using entity resolution and built?in intents in Alexa skills Making a conversational Alexa skill VUI and conversation best practices Using conversation tools to add meaning and usability Directing conversation flow Building for Google Assistant Going multimodal Push interactions Building for actions on Google with the Actions SDK