Alexa Essential Training (updated Feb 2019)

Course Curriculum

Chapter 1: Section I – Introduction

Lecture 1: Course Structure

Lecture 2: Should you learn Alexa development ?

Lecture 3: How Alexa works ?

Lecture 4: Alexa devices

Lecture 5: How users interact with Alexa ?

Lecture 6: The Alexa Store

Lecture 7: Sign up

Lecture 8: About the author

Chapter 2: Voice User Interface Design (VUI)

Lecture 1: What is Voice User Interface Design ?

Lecture 2: What do users expect from Voice Interaction ?

Lecture 3: Principle #1: Don't Rely on Screens

Lecture 4: Principle #2: Object Permanence

Lecture 5: Principle #3: Cognitive Load

Lecture 6: Principle #4: Have a Clear Objective

Lecture 7: Principle #5: The X-Factor

Lecture 8: Principle #6: Design for Natural Language Conversation

Lecture 9: Principle #7: Think of Variations

Lecture 10: Applying the Principles: Buying a car VUI Design

Chapter 3: Development Environment Setup – Alexa with AWS Lambda

Lecture 1: Important Links

Lecture 2: Setup Notes

Lecture 3: Development Environment Setup

Lecture 4: Create a New Skill – I

Lecture 5: Create a New Skill – II

Lecture 6: Invocation name

Lecture 7: New Intent

Lecture 8: New AWS Lambda Function

Lecture 9: Coding Business Logic in Lambda Function

Lecture 10: Linking Lambda Function to Skill

Lecture 11: Testing

Lecture 12: Types of Skills

Lecture 13: Break and feedback

Chapter 4: Alexa's Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)

Lecture 1: Important Notes

Lecture 2: SSML – Introduction

Lecture 3: SSML – examples

Lecture 4: SSML – Reference Link

Lecture 5: Displaying Cards

Chapter 5: Sessions in Alexa Skills

Lecture 1: Handling Intents

Lecture 2: ShouldEndSession – I

Lecture 3: ShouldEndSession – II

Lecture 4: When do sessions end ?

Lecture 5: Attributes in Session object

Lecture 6: Attributes in Session object – continued

Lecture 7: Summary

Chapter 6: The Built-in Intents – AMAZON.HelpIntent, AMAZON.CancelIntent, AMAZON.StopIntent

Lecture 1: Handling built-in intents

Lecture 2: Recap

Chapter 7: First Skill – Plan My Trip using Web Service as Endpoint

Lecture 1: Introduction

Lecture 2: Source Code

Lecture 3: The Interaction Model

Lecture 4: Setting up the Endpoint

Lecture 5: Handling LaunchRequest

Lecture 6: Intent processing – I

Lecture 7: Intent processing – II

Lecture 8: Intent processing – III

Lecture 9: Intent processing – IV

Lecture 10: Intent processing – V

Lecture 11: Testing

Lecture 12: Using the New Testing Simulator

Lecture 13: Handling StopIntent

Lecture 14: The CancelIntent & HelpIntent

Lecture 15: Skill Invocation name testing

Lecture 16: Testing Utterances

Lecture 17: Slot validation – I

Lecture 18: Slot validation – II

Lecture 19: Prepopulating Slot values

Lecture 20: Congratulations!!

Chapter 8: Second Skill using Alexa SDK v1

Lecture 1: Introduction

Lecture 2: Links

Lecture 3: Setting up the Lambda Function

Lecture 4: Launch Request

Lecture 5: Reprompt Text

Lecture 6: Handling Built-in Intents

Lecture 7: PlanMyTrip Intent

Lecture 8: Source code

Lecture 9: Conclusion

Chapter 9: Third Skill – High Low Game – using Alexa SDK v1

Lecture 1: Introduction

Lecture 2: Important instructions

Lecture 3: Initial Setup

Lecture 4: New Session

Lecture 5: Stop and Cancel Intents

Lecture 6: Introducing States

Lecture 7: State based Routing

Lecture 8: The Guessing State

Lecture 9: Guessing State continued

Lecture 10: Closing notes

Chapter 10: Miscellaneous tasks using SDK v1

Lecture 1: Displaying cards using Alexa sdk v1

Lecture 2: Beta Testing Facility

Chapter 11: Linking to Third-Party Services

Lecture 1: Basics

Lecture 2: Linking to Google Account

Chapter 12: Flash Briefing Skills – Let's how to distribute news