As WordCamp Europe approaches, we wanted to highlight a couple of workshops, projects and ways we’ve been incorporating voice as an interface to the applications we build.
Making Websites Talk: the rise of Voice Search and Conversational Interfaces
This workshop looks like it covers eveything from the practical application of adding voice and how to implement the various resources to make that happen.
It’s also two fold by touching on the topic of SEO!
For applications or websites to be built in a way to work with voice interfaces like Amazon Alexa, Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, or Google Assistant the markup has to be semantic to a fault.
By providing semantically structured data using methods like Microformats, applications across different programming languages and platforms can still easily learn and process your data.
Testing web accessibility for designers, developers, and content managers
We’re excited about this workshop as it combines the topics and tech required for voice applications and accessibility on the web. As mentioned, semantic markup is one of the most important pieces of building applications with voice interfaces. Whether you are creating an Alexa Skill to stream news updates or creating a chatbot, highly structured data is required. Same applies to screen readers.
Screen readers and other web accessibility devices rely on that data to provide the user with the info they need, whether they are searching, navigating or contributing content.
Voice WP
Voice WP is a project that allows users to create Alexa Skills with a WordPress plugin. It’s an open source project available on Github that uses the WordPress CMS as the Skills data source.
It offers all the features you’d expect to get started building a voice-powered app but also keeps it simple.
One of the most important points about voice as an interface is simplicity. Complex commands or lengthy conversations with a blinking light might not have much of a wow factor for your users.
Shifter News Alexa Skill
Stay up to date with WordCamp Europe news with the Shifter News Alexa Skill! The team behind Shifter also created an interface using voice.
Our Shifter News Alexa Skill is available in the Amazon Alexa Skills Store now. It connects to our blog and streams the latest updates right into your Alexa Flash Briefing.