Useful Tools for VUI Designers And Developers When Designing Actions On Google

The growing interest for Voice User Interface and with Actions on Google expanding to more languages from various countries has made it easier and accessible. Proper tools are essential for VUI designers and Google actions developers. The majority of the information available on the internet on designing for VUI makes it a point, to begin with, a simple hand-drawn blue path. Then manually test it among the people you know. However, user-assistant conversations need much more than that to move forward, make quick iterations, and change the words and their order. It will ultimately help to design the entire use cases and intents flawlessly.

The Actions on Google lets you extend the conversation to other platforms like mobile phones or Google Home Hub. With some useful tools at hand, you can save more time and increase the output quality.

Dialogue and Popped.app

The Celtx script provides both mobile and desktop apps. But if you want something more to reflect the Actions on Google interface on mobile phones, Dialogue: Screenplay Writer is a great app. It is available only on the App Store. Popped.app can be used by the Android users, which is the app’s web counterpart. The only major disadvantage is that although both applications are a single product, it lacks synchronization among mobile and desktop systems. The workflow is different; movement between the two platforms is slightly constricted. 

Otherwise, here’s how Dialogue can help you.

• You can use the application during the beginning stages of developing your voice assistant.
• It can be used to create the initial fundamental flows, its corresponding intents, and interactions that can happen between the assistant and the user.
• You can segregate your scripts into scenes, which can be a discrete use case for intents.
• The scenes can be used for early-stage UAT with your friends or colleagues.
• The test can be run as and when required. Your phone is sufficient for testing, and also your notes can be stored within the app.
• Custom-made avatars can be created for your assistant or user according to your preference.

Celtx for Game Writers

Celtx provides a wide variety of products for creative writers. The basic celtx script can be used like Popped & Dialogue apps. It is a dedicated solution for game scriptwriting with Interactive dialogues and dynamic visualization. The interface offers more advanced features that might be of utmost help while designing the best Actions on Google for any Google actions developer.

Here’s what Celtx has to offer.

• The app helps to create the entire flow for your action, including all the user-assistant interactions.
• It allows writing more complex dialogues having several branches, but it effectively offers a general overview of the entire flow.
• Dynamic visualization can be customized in terms of graphical depiction. It helps to cover all the paths in a single diagram.
• For every single intent, both blue and red paths can be created for easy identification. For complex diagrams with more branches can always be moved as per your convenience. Else, a new sequence can be created for a new intent and shift it away from the initial one.
• It allows collaboration, which is the most significant advantage. The general flow and intents can be shared with copywriters and Google actions developers to do their part of the job.

Botsociety

Next up is Botsociety. It is an excellent app for performing custom Google actions as it effectively gives you the nearest real-life assistant experience. The creators say that this tool makes your chatbot or voice assistant sound more humane by providing voice tones, possible interactions, and anything else that could aid in making your bot more human.

Let’s see what makes Botsociety best to develop an easy to use solution and cover much of VUI designers’ requirements.

• Sketching flows seem natural, like a regular conversation.
• The user’s voice can be recorded to get a transcript.
• The dialog option lets you add new paths for the conversation.
• As far as the Google Actions development is concerned, you can select the voice for your assistant, emphasize particular words, or alter the voice’s pitch.
• Conversation reviews are generated automatically depending on the conversation written.
• Several export options are available, including exporting a video of a selected path.
• Finally, team members’ or clients’ collaboration and leaving comments on particular dialogue portions is possible.
• Moreover, you can collaborate with the Google actions development team by using Botsociety’s API. The API can be integrated with Google Dialogflow to develop intents and other variables for them to use.

If your focus is only on voice responses, then Botsociety is apt, as far as Action on Google is concerned.

Final thoughts

With the help of the above said three tools, your Actions on Google projects could be taken to another notch by making your work much more comfortable and speed up the course of creating your action.

If you are looking to hire Google Actions developers or need some help with getting started with your voice assistance projects, reach our experts.

Tags

• Actions on Google projects
• Google Actions developer