About Designing an Interaction Model

By designing your skill as accurately as possible from the outset, you can help avoid issues in the future. A skill that isn't designed properly can delay publication and require edits to the voice interaction model, and can frustrate customers to the point where customers don't use the skill or leave negative feedback. For details on voice interaction models, see About Voice Interaction Models.

The design guide covers the components of a skill, best practices for designing a custom voice interaction model, and the benefits for your skill and your customers. The following sections align with the skill design cycle.

Design guide

  • Design the Invocation Name for Your Skill

    Invocation names are one of the first things you need to decide on for your skill. The invocation name is the expression that users will need to say, along with other supported phrasing, to open and interact with your skill. This section gives guidance on how to choose the best invocation name so that customers can accurately access the skill.

  • Design the Sample Utterances and Intents for Your Skill

    Intents represent a particular function of your skill. Each intent should include a variety of phrases, also known as sample utterances, that customers are likely to say to reach the functionality. This section provides best practices on setting up both your intents and sample utterances up for success.

    • Design the Custom Intents for Your Skill

      If you are creating your own custom intent, covering the different ways customers can route to an intent via your sample utterances is critical. This subsection provides suggestions.

    • Tips for Using Built-in Intents for Your Skill

      There are pre-made intents with pre-entered sample utterances that cover common functions. Using built-in intents effectively can help improve skill accuracy and the customer experience.

  • Design the Slots for Your Skill

    Slots represent wording that is variable in sample utterances.

    • Design the Custom Slots for Your Skill

      Without slots, a sample utterance of “Book me a plane ticket in January” would have to be rewritten twelve times to cover the other months of the year. A slot lets you add all twelve months in as values, meaning the sample utterance only has to be written once with a slot now included instead, for example “Book me a plane ticket in {Month}.”

    • Tips for Using Built-in Slots for Your Skill

      There are pre-made slots already filled with values that you can use. This section covers how you can use built-in slots to help make your life easier as a developer.

  • Design the Prompts for Your Skill

    Prompts are device-initiated commands that ask for input from the customer. They allow the skill to ask additional questions in a free-flowing dialogue, and also let the customer know about the functionality that the skill offers, enhancing the user experience. This section provides information about different types of prompts you can use, and how you can set up the prompts more effectively.

  • Test the Design of the Interaction Model for Your Skill

    Once your skill builds, test the skill to catch any issues, such as problems with the interaction model. Testing allows you to take action before forwarding the skill for publishing. This section details the different kinds of testing you can do to make sure the skill performs as accurately as possible.

  • Internationalize the Interaction Model for Your Skill

    If you want your skill to reach a global market, consider formatting it in different languages and for different marketplaces. There are numerous linguistic and cultural considerations that you must takes into consideration when doing this, and this section highlights best practices.

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Last updated: Nov 28, 2023