Voice 101: Alexa Custom Skill Development Fundamentals

Name: Voice 101: Alexa Custom Skill Development Fundamentals
Rating: 4.6 (114 reviews)

Learn the basics of building custom Alexa Skills

Created byMatt Pitts

Last updated 10/2019

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

How to plan and design custom Alexa Skills
How to work with Alexa Skills in the Developer Console
How to reason about Alexa Skill Invocation
What makes up the Alexa Skill Interaction Model
The basics of Alexa Skill Intents and Functions
How to harness the Alexa Dialog Model
The basics of writing code for Alexa Skills
The basics of attribute persistence in Alexa Skills
How to harness the powerful NEW Built-In intents
How to enhance premium skills with SSML speech output
How to use the awesome NEW APL (Alexa Presentation Language) interface
How to make money with NEW ISP (In-Skill Purchasing)
Basics of testing Alexa Skills

Course content

14 sections • 51 lectures • 3h 34m total length

Welcome to Voice 1010:29
After completing this lecture, you will understand the content and scope of the course.
Current State of Voice Development1:39
After completing this lecture, students will understand how rapidly things change in the voice development ecosystem.
About the Instructor0:38
In this lecture students will get a quick introduction to the instructor.
About the Course1:01
In this lecture students will get a basic introduction to the course and information on how to report inaccuracies.
Detailed Course Overview4:04
In this lecture students will get a detailed high level overview of the course and the overall course structure.

Alexa Design Principles Overview2:17
In this lecture students get a brief introduction to the Alexa Skill Design Principles. After completing this lecture students will have basic understanding of the Alexa Design Principles.
Principle 1: Be Adaptable3:46
After completing this lecture the student will have a good theoretical understanding of the 1st Alexa Design Principle.
Principle 2: Be Personal4:51
After completing this lecture, students will have a good theoretical understanding of the 2nd Alexa Design Principle.
Principle 3: Be Available4:18
After completing this lecture, students will have a good theoretical understanding of the 3rd Alexa Design Principle.
Principle 4: Be Relatable3:08
After completing this lecture, students will have a good theoretical understanding of the 4th Alexa Design Principle.
Core Alexa Skills Design Principles
What is the Skill Value Proposition2:09
In this lecture, students will learn how to create a Skill Value Proposition.
Create a Skill Value Proposition
Write Your Skill Script4:05
In this lecture, students will learn the basics of writing a skill dialog script.
Interaction Model Design4:22
In this lecture, students learn how the skill script maps to the interaction model design.

Introduction to creating skills in the developer console2:27
In this lecture the student will get an introduction to the Amazon Developer console.
Demo Introduction1:56
In this lecture, students learn about the upcoming demo on creating an Alexa Skill using the developer console. Students will also learn more about the benefits and limitations of creating skills using the developer console.
Demo: Creating an Alexa Skill in the Developer Console4:39
In this lecture, students will learn how to create a new Alexa Skill in the developer console.
Alexa Developer Console Tour7:28
In this lecture, students learn about the various parts of the Alexa Developer Console.

Overview of Skill Invocation3:34
In this lecture, students will get an overview on Skill Invocation.
Deep Dive on Skill Invocation3:56
In this lecture, students do a deep dive on skill invocation. After this lecture students will have a solid understanding on how customers invoke Alexa Skills.
Demo: Adding a Skill Invocation Name in the Developer Console2:26
In this lecture students will learn how to add a skill invocation name using the developer console.
Mastering Alexa Skill Invocation Phrases

Understanding Skill Utterances2:03
In this lecture, students will gain a solid understanding of skill utterances and how they are used within the skill interaction model.
Demo: Adding Skill Utterances in the Developer Console2:00
In this lecture, students will learn how to add Alexa Skill intent utterances using the developer console.
Understanding Skill Slots1:08
In this lecture, students will gain a solid understanding of slots and how they fit in to the overall skill interaction model.
Demo: Adding Skill Slots in the developer console4:28
In this lecture, students learn how to add skill slots to the interaction model in the developer console.
Demo: Adding Slot Types in the developer console4:18
In this lecture, students will learn how to add slot types using the developer console.

Understanding Skill Dialog Flow1:32
In this lecture, students will learn the basics of Alexa Skill dialog flow.
Demo: Adding a Dialog Using the Developer Console10:04
In this lecture, students learn how to add a dialog to a skill using the developer console.
Demo: Adding Slot Validation Using the Developer Console7:43
In this lecture, students learn how to add validation to dialog slots, using the developer console.
Understanding Entity Resolution2:06
In this lecture, students will gain a solid understanding of entity resolution.
Demo: Adding Entity Resolution Capability2:10
In this lecture, students will learn how to add Entity Resolution capability using the developer console.

Introduction to Writing Skill Code1:49
In this lecture, students will get an overview on writing skill code.
Demo: Understanding the Code Structure in the Console7:17
In this lecture, students will learn about basic skill code structure as it is shown in the developer console.
Demo: Adding Request Handlers in Code5:42
In this section, students will learn how to add request handlers in code, using the developer console.
Demo: Testing the Interaction Model and Code8:56
In this lecture, students will test the skill and code built so far during the course.
Demo: Testing One Shot Utterances and Filled Slots3:45
In this lecture, students will learn how to validate whether their interaction model properly handles one-shot utterances and requests with pre-filled slots.
Introduction to Writing Code for Skill Persistence1:41
In this lecture, students will get an introduction to writing code for skill persistence.
Demo: Writing Skill Persistence Code in the Developer Console8:37
In this lecture, students learn how to write basic skill persistence code using the code editor in the developer console.
Demo: Testing the Persistence Code in the Developer Console4:48
In this lecture, students run a quick series of tests to verify the persistence code written earlier works properly.
Understanding Attribute Persistence

Requirements

Have a basic understanding of web technologies such as HTML, JS, and CSS
Have some experience writing code
Have an Amazon Developer account

Description

In this course you will get a solid introduction to the fundamentals of building premium Alexa Voice Skills. Voice development offers new and exciting opportunities for developers. With over 100,000,000 Alexa-powered devices sold to date, now is the time to learn how to build for this ecosystem.

Here's how the course will work:

You'll start by learning how to plan and design your custom Alexa skill. You'll get valuable insights on how to approach building out your custom skill. These insights will help you as you start to build out more complex skills
Next, you'll start diving into the Alexa Developer Console where you will learn how to easily build your first skill, using zero code to start
After that, you'll take a deep dive into understanding Alexa Skill Invocation. Skill invocation is important, because it goes to the heart of how your customers will tell Alexa to start your skill
Up next will be a solid overview of Skill Intents and Functions. You will have a good understanding of the complexities of Alexa Skill Intents and Functions
Finally, you will learn the ins and outs of the Alexa Dialog Model

In addition to the fundamental aspects listed above, you will learn some new exciting APIs in the Alexa Development ecosystem, as well as get introduced to more advanced topics, including:

The basics of writing code for your skill
Writing code for skill persistence
Deep dive on Built-In Intents
Understanding SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language)
APL (Alexa Presentation Language) Introduction
ISP (In-Skill Purchasing) Introduction
Testing Skills

You will also get hands-on experience with plenty of demos, activities, and quizzes.

Who this course is for:

Beginner Front-end developers with some coding experience

Voice 101: Alexa Custom Skill Development Fundamentals

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction5 lectures • 8min

Planning and Designing Custom Skills8 lectures • 29min

Working with Skills in the Developer Console4 lectures • 17min

Understanding Skill Invocation3 lectures • 10min

Skill Intents and Functions2 lectures • 6min

Skill Utterances and Slots5 lectures • 14min

Skill Dialog Flow5 lectures • 24min

Writing Skill Code8 lectures • 43min

Understanding the New Built-In Intents2 lectures • 20min

Using SSML2 lectures • 8min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: