{"id":28507,"date":"2020-01-25T09:13:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T14:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/?p=28507"},"modified":"2024-03-06T15:44:01","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T20:44:01","slug":"alexa-hows-the-surf-transformed-for-todays-chatbot-technologies_miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/alexa-hows-the-surf-transformed-for-todays-chatbot-technologies_miami\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexa, How\u2019s the Surf? Transformed for Today\u2019s Chatbot Technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"
Part three in a series.<\/a><\/p>\n A few years ago, I wrote a blog about an emerging technology called Amazon Echo<\/a>. That blog post chronicled my journey down the path of creating an Alexa Skill (the technical term for programming with Alexa) called Surf Check.<\/p>\n While that first post focuses on Alexa, the same principles apply to Google Home and some of the other chatbot technologies available on the market today.<\/strong><\/p>\n And though I\u2019d like to claim the skill is hugely popular with thousands of hits per day, in reality, Surf Check is just my playground for learning new concepts with Voice User Interfaces. Over the last few years, I tweaked and refactored the original skill as I discovered new Alexa and AWS features. I documented some of those updates, such as creating a Facebook Messenger interface, in a follow-up blog.<\/a><\/p>\n In this next iteration of the blog series, I take a more holistic view of the various modules to show how, with a little bit of refactoring and a microservice architecture, I transformed my original Surf Check Alexa Skill into a \u201cserverless, microservice, multi-modal chatbot monster\u201d!<\/strong> Hyperbole aside, the result is certainly serverless, leverages microservices, and provides several interfaces for interaction: Alexa, Facebook Messenger<\/a>, Text Messaging, and a good old fashioned Telephone Call.<\/p>\n As you will see, my journey involved a lot of exploration, experimentation, and trial-and-error. While I can\u2019t guarantee that you\u2019ll end up in the same place I did, I\u2019d like to walk you through my process in the hopes it may help you develop your own, if you aren\u2019t able to replicate mine exactly.<\/p>\n As I mentioned in the introduction, I\u2019ve implemented several iterations of my Surf Check Alexa Skill. Starting with a fundamental Alexa Skill<\/a> developed in C#, each successive iteration benefited from refactoring in some cases, and wholesale replacement with better components in others. The images in Figure 1 show the basic flow of the Alexa interaction.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The table in Figure 2 provides a glimpse into the components that served as a starting point for the current iteration.<\/p>\nIntroduction<\/h2>\n
How I Did It<\/h2>\n
1.\u00a0 Review of Existing Components<\/h4>\n