Travel Haikus
VUI Case Study
PROJECT TYPE
Amazon Alexa Skill
ROLE
Writer, Designer, Basic Coding
TOOLS
Amazon Alexa Console, Illustrator
PROJECT OVERVIEW
OBJECTIVE
Provide users with a random haiku upon request.
CONTEXT
Haiku is a form of short, Japanese poetry that consists of three lines in a 5-syllable, 7-syllable, 5-syllable pattern. Traditional haikus often reference nature and seasons to comment on a fleeting emotion or create a particular mood, but haikus can be anything—serious, whimsical or downright hilarious.
For this skill, I’ve taken a light-hearted approach with the subject matter to provide users with travel inspired poems for a fun and playful way to interact with Alexa.
SKILL FEATURES
• 10 travel-themed haikus that Alexa will randomly pull from when a user asks for a travel haiku
• Custom help message
• 60+ relevant utterances for the GetHaikuIntent
• The ability to read multi-line responses with appropriate pauses/breaks between the lines
Development
I used a skill code template for a haiku reader and then customized the code to work for my skill, Travel Haikus.
Invocation
First I needed to assign my skill's invocation name. Users say a skill's invocation name to begin an interaction with a particular custom skill.
Skill Invocation Name: travel haikus
Intents, Samples & Slots
I added 61 utterances to the GetHaikuIntent to ensure that Alexa would respond as expected with a variety of users.
Skill Code
I updated the template code with my skill name, help message and haikus.
Skill Build Complete
All steps were completed and functioning properly. It was time to test!
USER TestING
The test was conducted in person, using the Alexa testing simulator (microphone-enabled) so that I would have a transcription of what was said.
