Anyone with a smart home device has at least thought of creating a way to interact with their device, and it's getting easier and easier to do so every day.
Amazon, for example, recently made an update to its Alexa Skills Kit Developer Console - the platform where voice app makers develop their workflows.
The console now offers separate sections for building, testing, launching, and measuring Alexa skills - meaning developers can create skills in the visual interface, test their performance, push them live, and then see how consumers respond in order to make adjustments and all in one integrated environment. The updated system even comes with a built-in checklist and validation support at each step. Our early testing of the new console revealed a much more streamlined offering in general.
What developers will find iis a greater emphasis on visualizing the flow of the conversation with Alexa than in the previous version (existing users can toggle between the two consoles to see the difference). Developers will have a visual interface for creating skill components, such as intents, slots, sample utterances, as well as the dialog model.
Alexa Skill developers can also test their skill in the console. The "Launch" page now shows developers common validation errors, and offers support for publishing private skills for Alexa for Business (this was limited previoulsy to those publishing the Alexa Skills Kit Command Line Interface).
Developers will also be able to track metrics around sessions, utterances, unique customers, and even cohort analysis, under the new "Measure" tab.
