When you have a conversation with a person, there’s a natural back and forth. You say something. The other person understands what you said, processes it, and responds in a way that is concise and understood by both parties. Your Alexa skills should also be natural by adapting to a customer’s utterances appropriately and responding in a relatable way.
Look at the following example of an unnatural conversation. In this example, a user asks Alexa for a movie recommendation.
Alexa what movie should I watch today? Turquoise
Alexa what movie should I watch today? Blue
Alexa what movie should I watch today? Light Gray - 2
Alexa what movie should I watch today? Alexa Blue
User: Alexa, what movie should I watch today?
Alexa: Sorry, I don’t understand.
User: Alexa, open Movie Recommender.
Alexa: Welcome to Movie Recommender. I have a lot of movie recommendations. I can show you horror movies, romantic movies, action movies, dramas, sci-fi movies, comedies, documentaries, animation films, or thrillers.
User: Wow. That’s a lot. Okay, ummm. I’d like Tom Hanks's comedies.
Alexa: I have over five hundred comedy movie recommendations. I can narrow that down by a leading actress or actor, like Viola Davis or Robin Williams.
User: Tom Hanks
Alexa: Great, I can recommend The Burbs, Big, The Money Pit, Sleepless in Seattle, Turner & Hooch, and Joe Versus the Volcano.
User: What’s Sleepless in Seattle about?
Alexa: Sorry, I don’t understand.
User: What’s the movie Sleepless in Seattle about?
Alexa: Playing Sleepless in Seattle.
User: Stop.
Alexa what movie should I watch today? Light Gray - 2
Alexa what movie should I watch today? Alexa Blue
Now look at the following example of a natural conversation.
User: Alexa, What movie should I watch today?
Alexa: I know you’re a big fan of romantic comedies. How about Bull Durham?
User: No, that’s okay.
Alexa: No problem. What are you in the mood for?
User: I’d like Tom Hanks's comedies.
Alexa: I think you’d really like Sleepless in Seattle. Want to watch that?
User: What’s it about?
Alexa: Tom Hanks plays a widower named Sam Baldwin who moves to Seattle with his son. His son calls into a radio show to find a new wife for his dad. Sam gets on the line and describes his feelings. Meg Ryan plays a reporter named Annie Reed that listens to Sam on the line and falls for him. Sound good?
User: Yeah! I’ll watch that!
There’s a few key concepts, you should keep in mind to have a natural conversation, such as the second Movie Recommender skill experience.
Write the way you speak
It’s tempting to write dialog for an Alexa skill the same way you write a text message. However, people don’t write the same way they speak. The spoken word is brief. People often use contractions to speed things up. People express their emotions through pauses and speaking in a different cadence. Also, they don’t try to repeat themselves. The best way to test if your dialog works is to act it out, one person as Alexa and the other as your user. After you refine your dialog, you can use Alexa Presentation Language for Audio to customize your speech pattern and responses
Unnatural conversation
Alexa: I have a lot of movie recommendations. I can show you horror movies, romantic movies, action movies, dramas, sci-fi movies, comedies, documentaries, animation films, or thrillers
Natural conversation
Alexa: What are you in the mood for?
Invoke your skill without a name
A user normally has a goal in mind of what they’re looking for when they communicate with Alexa. The user doesn't necessarily know the name of a skill that will complete their request. Sign up for the Name Free Interaction Toolkit preview to have users more easily discover your skill. Alexa uses keywords, skill descriptions, and categories to surface the most relevant skill for a task.
Unnatural conversation
User: Alexa, open Movie Recommender.
Natural conversation
User: Alexa, what movie should I watch today?
Adapt to the user
Users talk in a variety of ways, but there are patterns to these ways. For instance, a user can say a variety of phrases to mean the same thing, they use pronouns, they over and under answer questions, and they correct themselves. Adapting to all these ways of speaking can seem daunting. Alexa Conversations can simplify that. Alexa Conversations is an artificial intelligence (AI) driven engine that you train with just a few sample dialogs. The engine then creates simulated dialogs that represent a wide range of behaviors. For details, see Design dialogs for Alexa Conversations.
Unnatural conversation
Alexa: What genre do you want?
User: I’d like Tom Hanks's comedies.
Alexa: What actor or actress?
User: Tom Hanks
Natural conversation
Alexa: What genre do you want?
User: I’d like Tom Hanks's comedies.
Alexa: I think you’d really like Sleepless in Seattle.