Transparency Series Workshop: Voice Interfaces with Washington Post & NPR

Authoring experiences for a voice assistant or smart speaker is a combination of several distinct skillsets. Some conversational interfaces are driven by keywords, depending on users stating specific terms, while others involve artificial intelligence to create more natural conversations around content. The content itself is a product of both editorial work as well as programming effort to implement the conversation in code. In this workshop, students will prototype a journalistic application for a smart speaker. We will focus on Amazon’s Alexa platform and use simple graphical interfaces to design content delivery. Emphasis will be on developing insights into what makes a good conversation, reformatting and focusing on journalism that translates well to the platform.