10 reasons to make your skill for voice assistant

The number of voice applications for Alice, Google Assistant, Marusya and others like them is growing rapidly. Who and why develops skills, skills, action games? Someone makes it to order, someone - in the hope of donating users or Alice premium. What is the enthusiasm of other authors? I share motives on the example of my own making skills and propose to discuss this topic.



Developing a voice application is quite a time consuming task. Usually the creator has several reasons to invest his time in it. The order of reasons in the list below is random.

Reason number 1. Development and PR skills

The absence of the customer gives freedom in experiments. For the skill “ One, Two, Three! Multiplayer game ”I chose unfamiliar technology. Received by developing experience shared in Habré - and even received a job offer from the reader.

Reason number 2. Prizes and recognition at hackathons

With the help of chatbot designers, it’s not so difficult to develop an effective hackathon skill. Action “ Voice list“ Plus-minus ” ” I made for the hackathon on the development of Google-action games, where I had a great time and got a nice backpack and other buns for 2nd place.



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Reason number 3. Test

Skill can quickly assess. Skill “Test Vojta-Kampf” was made according to the requirements of the future employer, as a test task. Other skills that were ready at that time were good proof of competence.

Reason number 4. Tool for yourself

Skill can be used by yourself. In some cases, the voice interface is really convenient. Skill “ Fizruk, count! ”I regularly use it myself when I am charging to the music and the score from the Irbis column.

Reason number 5. Data collection

Voice assistants users are a good source of requests. In the skill and action “ Folk dialogues ”, I gave users the opportunity to independently fill the bot's knowledge base and accumulated dialogs with interesting questions and answers to users.

Reason number 6. Promotion of other projects

Voice applications are another channel that is logical to use to interact with users of already existing services. The “ Live Retelling ” skill is an additional channel for users of the pet-project of the same name, which I started a lot earlier.

Reason number 7. Communication and acquaintance

The community of voice application developers consists of interesting, enthusiastic people. Skill “ KVN. Biathlon ”was made as part of a beta test of the new Yandex.Alissa functionality, while communicating with the creators of the assistant himself and other enthusiasts.

Reason number 8. Ideas check

The application in the voice assistant can be shown to a large audience and get feedback. The skill, and then the action, “ Video Game“ Round Square ” ” was created to test the idea of ​​voice control of video games. The idea was published on Habré , and then presented at the hackathon as part of a conference of conversational artificial intelligence.

Reason number 9. Self expression

Access to an audience is important for creative people who can master new formats of interaction. In the skill “ The meaning of the life of a voice assistant, ” I published an essay of my own composition. This audio story is available to all Yandex.Alice users, even without a subscription to a music service.

Reason number 10. Teaching others

Lightweight using visual designers programming voice applications allows you to use them for educational purposes. To create the “ Association for a Time ” skill, I attracted my girlfriend, who became interested in designing voice interfaces. Participation in a joint project gave her additional motivation and experience.



And what prompted you to create your skill for voice assistants? I suggest the authors of skills and actions to take part in a short survey for reasons as well as the level of training as a programmer. Add your own options in the comments.