Architecture to Design Booking Appointment Applications for the Smart Personal Assistant Alexa

Abstract

The intelligent smart assistants are becoming more interactive and helpful for everyday tasks. The Amazon Echo has potential for advanced voice interactions and as a tool for conducting complex tasks. The potential of the Amazon Echo in the area of booking appointments is not being fully exploited by developers. A flexible architecture for developing appointment booking applications for the Amazon Echo was proposed. The architecture serves as guide for developers without experience working with Voice User Interfaces and saves development time by abstracting the complexity of voice interactions. A prototype skill was developed following the architecture principles and evaluated by a group of users. The skill successfully defines how an appointment booking skill should be.