We’re pleased to announce our collaboration with CareerFoundry on the company’s first specialized course for voice, Voice Design with Amazon Alexa. The course will be available this summer as part of CareerFoundry’s Certified UX Designer program and as a standalone course for tech professionals who want to stay ahead of the game.

CareerFoundry is a Berlin-based online tech education company which offers courses in UX design, UI design, web development, and iOS development. It is expanding its course offering to include training specifically targeting the talent gap around emerging technologies, starting with voice design.

The Certified UX Designer program is a 10-month course made up of three stages—UX Fundamentals, UX Immersion, and UX Specialization courses. Students can choose from a range of specializations, each designed with industry experts to build on core skills and give students a unique competitive advantage.

UX design students who opt for the Voice Design with Amazon Alexa course will learn how to create user flows for different types of voice interactions and how to interpret natural voice cues. They’ll also learn how to optimize the emotional appeal of voice technology, and how to design interactions which combine both voice and graphic user interfaces.

This course helps professionals tap into the high demand for voice design specialists, says CareerFoundry CEO Raffaela Rein.

“By 2020, half of all mobile queries will be performed by voice. With such high usage, voice technology will be much more prominent in the design process, and currently there is very little skilled talent in the area. This course will be the first to change that, providing an opportunity for UX designers to get ahead of the curve and specialize in the field,” Rein said.

If you’re interested in taking the course, you can sign up for the Certified UX Designer program today and get two specialization courses included free. If you’re interested in taking the course as a standalone option, head over to CareerFoundry on Facebook and like the page to be the first to know when it launches.

Build a Skill, Get an Echo Dot

The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) enables developers to build capabilities, called skills, for Alexa. ASK is a collection of self-service APIs, documentation, tools, and code samples that make it fast and easy for anyone to add skills to Alexa. 

Developers have built more than 13,000 skills with ASK. Explore the stories behind some of these innovations, then start building your own skill. Once you publish your skill, apply to receive a free Echo Dot. This promotion is available in the US only. Check out our promotions in the UK, Germany, and India.