[FEF] Voice: The New Frontend

Transcript

1. Nara Kasbergen (@xiehan) #FrontEndFest Wednesday, April 3, 2019

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4. Now: Then:

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6. Vision of the future How we got here Where we

   are today How to build for voice today Lessons learned AMA (Ask Me Anything)
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14. definition: the ability of a computer program to understand human

    language as it is spoken. NLP is a component of artificial intelligence (AI). (source) circa 1960 first major advances in the 1980s

15. definition: Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence (AI)

    that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can access data and use it to learn for themselves. (source) circa 1950s first major advances in the 1980s

16. https://hackernoon.com/moores-law-is-alive-and-well-adc010ea7a63

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22. definition: a computer program or an artificial intelligence which conducts

    a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Such programs are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner, thereby passing the Turing test. (source) circa 1966 (ELIZA) first major advances in the early 2000s
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31. Web Speech API: • Speech recognition • Speech synthesis (TTS)

    W3C Community specification was published in 2012 SpeechRecognition interface currently only supported in Chrome, experimental feature Uses Google's servers to convert speech to text (requires Internet connection)

32. "Common Voice is Mozilla's initiative to help teach machines how

    real people speak." (source) Publicly open dataset Upload recordings of your voice Help reduce bias in Natural Language Processing (NLP) & machine learning

33. Mozilla Scout Mycroft

34. NLP/ML/AI Consumer applications

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37. it's not about the code

38. • node.js • serverless (AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions)

    • lightweight database (e.g. Amazon DynamoDB) • CI server of choice (e.g. Travis, Jenkins, etc.) • unit testing framework of choice (e.g. Jest) • TypeScript…?

39. Alexa node.js SDK: github.com/alexa/alexa-skills-kit-sdk-for-nodejs Actions on Google node.js SDK: github.com/actions-on-google/actions-on-google-nodejs

40. Alexa Google / Dialogflow

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42. invocation name

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45. intent sample utterance sample utterance

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47. intent slot (or entity)

48. JSON event with intent name and slot(s) Handler function mapped

    to that intent Use SDK to produce a response with speech, audio, etc.
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55. • Launch requests • Add intents • Wait for response

    • Handle slots • Add images to cards • Play simple audio • Use SSML • User login (OAuth2) • Persistent data • State management • Contexts (Google) • Dialog management (Alexa) • Advanced audio (Alexa) • Customize display on visual devices • Monetization / transactions • Request user permissions • Notifications • Internationalization

56. • By default, skills in development are only available to

    you • Certification process similar to mobile app store submissions ◦ ~48-hour turnaround on average ◦ Feedback is unpredictable! ◦ Respect existing brands • Can share a "beta" version with co-workers, friends, etc. ◦ Great for QA as well as hobby projects

57. Alexa: • Alexa Skill Blueprints Google: • Actions on Google

    Templates
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59. • The code is not hard • What is hard:

    ◦ Learning about the platform limitations ◦ Managing stakeholder expectations ◦ Understanding & changing user behaviors ◦ QA • It's not just an engineering challenge!

60. • You would think these platforms are ideal for audio…

    but they're not! • It's clear the companies designing these platforms are still focused primarily on Text-to-Speech (TTS) • The Actions on Google audio player is almost unusable • The Alexa audio player has many features but is very unintuitive when you're first working with it

61. • Invisible errors: ◦ The Alexa service / Google /

    Dialogflow can reject a user's request ◦ If that happens, your app is not notified at all! ◦ Logs/analytics can't tell the whole story ◦ Users often don't understand why it failed • Real user testing is critical!
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63. • Resilience • Patience • Honesty • Openness • Empathy

    ◦ Front-end developers have an edge!
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65. Thank you! Keep in touch: @xiehan nara@nara.codes