Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Cameron Jenkinson

Mocking up an Amazon Alexa Skill, Google Home and soon Homepod voice experiences without coding has now become a lot easier.

Designing voice experiences has been quite cumbersome because it currently requires developer support to outline a project and create the intents to handle responses all in code. This means to get anything meaningful to test and use takes a lot of effort up-front.

Sayspring have built a simple tool that makes it easy to prototype voice experiences supporting Alexa, Google Home and eventually Homepod in one place.

Note: I’m not affiliated with Sayspring but I do use the tool for projects

Sayspring, a startup that enables designers to create voice-enabled apps without code ahead of handing over projects to development, has just raised $1.5 million in funding for its efforts, the company is announcing today.

While visual designers today use software to create and visualize their applications ahead of launch, as well as to create prototypes, and run user tests, those tasked with building voice applications don’t have similar resources. Instead, voice apps have to be first coded by developers, and generally end up being tested in the wild in the hands of end users who enable the voice application on their Alexa-powered speakers, like the Echo, or Google Home.

– Tech crunch

Let’s explore a use case that would be appropriate for every home, utilities.

All smart assistants in the home enables the opportunity for utility suppliers to connect with customers without requiring them to call directly or login onto a website.

Currently when I want to check out the next bill, account balance and provide meter readings I do this through a mix of calling in, checking online and through letters in the post and takes up my time.

A voice experience could make handling these aspects of utilities a little easier, helping people retrieve and send back important information using voice.

I think voice is more fun because it takes less effort (sometimes) and it’s can leave you feeling little unknown at times making it more powerful when it works.

Let’s get started

The best way to follow this project along is to use the below references as a general guide to getting a project up and going with use cases. If you’d like to write a different dialogue then I implore you to do because you’ll explore your own creativity in how the use cases are handled.

Setup a new project and add the welcome greeting

The welcome greeting is the first thing the users will so it usually follows a hello and what the user can do so the use cases can be initiated.

Welcome greeting: Hi there, welcome to Mega Electric. You can ask for your account balance, when your next payment is due, meter readings and usage advice. What would you like to do?

Default response: Sorry, I didn’t understand that. Let’s try again, you can ask for your account balance, when your next payment is due, meter readings and usage advice. What would you like to do?

Use case one: Account Balance

If a user says: Whats my current balance or tell me my current account balance

Current balance: Your estimated account balance is 148 pounds. Your next payment is due July 1st of this year. For a more accurate estimate, would you mind sharing your meter readings with me today?

If a user says: What was my last bill? or previous bill

Previous balance: Your last bill was paid on March 24th of this year. The amount due was 276 pounds. Would you like to discuss your usage?

Use case two: Meter Readings

If the user says: meter readings or yes share meter readings (following on from the last use case)

Initiate reading request: To provide your meter readings simply say my meter readings are followed by the amount shown on the meter. For example, my meter readings are 413. Are you ready?

Provide readings: my meter readings are 257

Confirmation: Great, your meter readings for this period are 257. Is that correct?

Yes they are correct / yes meter readings are correct

Confirmed: Fantastic. Your readings have been added to your account. Your next bill will be updated to give a more accurate estimate. Would you like to hear more about your usage?

Use case three: Usage Advice

A small example of a use case that could go deeper and use ML to provide personalised advice to lower power consumption.

If the user says: tell me about my usage / yes I’d like to hear more about my usage

Usage patterns: On average, you use around 900 kWh per month. You could reduce this to around 800 kWh by turning off all electronic appliances and non essential power switches before bed. Try it tonight, I’ll be listening.

Preview it then refine responses

Sayspring makes it easy to preview the experience in the browser and you’ll be able to speak into the microphone to test out the responses without having to use a device.

Reviewing transcripts

Take a look at the transcripts of each conversation and investigate what people said that raises exemptions to refine the flow further.

Well done! Share it with colleagues and with me, I’d love to have a look. This took me a couple of hours to put together in total and required no developer support. I now have a prototype that can be put in-front of clients to begin a discussion around how it could run deeper and do more for their customers.

Sayspring has become an essential tool in my workflow, I can focus more on the experience for users and explore more complex use cases to get a feel for how it would sound. The end result is that the experience can be user tested within a couple of hours instead of days.

One last note from me:

Set a challenge for yourself this week even if you’re not a designer. What voice experience could you prototype that would enhance your life and make a task easier for you? Whether it is accessing information faster or helping to solve a job you need to get done day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year give it a try after reading this.

Thank you and always keep it open.

Rapid voice experience prototyping was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rapid voice experience prototyping

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