Before we get started, a full disclosure — this is not a paid endorsement. It is solely meant to encourage developers to create experiences for the future.

We are at the inception of what’s to come in the future of experiences. The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is evolving at the rapid pace and there are no signs of slowing. Eventually, the experiences get more natural. It is high time we shift our focus from writing code to just screens to array of new devices that are shaping the future of interaction. And it is not too far away. For starters, the codebase of this Skill can be used to get started with learning and creating experience of the future!

Recently, I published an Alexa Skill that can tell it’s users about the upcoming Long Weekends in India. Little did I expect that it would gain traction to attract over 100 unique users in its first 30-days upon publishing in India store. About a month after publishing the skill, I learned about the Alexa Developer Skill Promotion program that rewards its creators with perks in the US, UK, Canada, India, Germany, Japan, France and Australia.

My Skill was accepted and published in India, UK and US stores on December 27th, 2017 and to my surprise, it had crossed the requirement of 100-unique customers in first 30-days to qualify for a free Echo Dot device! Knowing that I have a chance to score one, I applied for the February promotion.

After a few weeks, I received a communication from Amazon Alexa team mentioning that my skill qualified for the February promotion and they sent me a limited edition t-shirt!

In addition, I received a promotional $100 AWS Credits for Alexa to host my skill on Lambda Functions.

And then came the mail! 🎉

My Echo Dot was delivered the next day!

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Creating a new Alexa Skill is easy. Fundamentally, we craft experiences for the users. Skills are voice-based Conversational UI in which the physical interaction is little to none. At the crux, you need to learn what Alexa understands when users say something and are able to make her respond to them.

I chose Node.js to build the Skill since I am comfortable with JavaScript. You can also build one using Java, Python, or C# as well. As there are tonnes of documentation and resources available that help you create your first Alexa Skill, a step-by-step guide on how to create a skill is beyond the scope of this article. But I have included a few helpful links at the end for your reference.

In addition to that, I have also open-sourced the entire codebase of the Skill that scored me a free Echo Dot on Github. Feel free to fork, contribute and/or reuse parts of the code as a template to work on your idea to create a brand new skill. Resist the urge to copy-paste the whole thing though! Put your creative hat on bring fresh ideas to the table! ;)

Make sure to keep usability of the skill in mind. A skill that users find helpful in finding the information they are looking for without having to touch a physical device requires “designing” the conversation efficiently. As a general tip, “Life Hacks” skills are pretty popular among the users.

Good luck!