Roy Williams, the Lyft engineer who built the Alexa skill, said it started with a company hackathon.
Lyft has a long culture of hackathons. Each quarter, the San Francisco company invites employees to experiment with new ideas. The story goes that Lyft itself was born at such a hackathon, with someone’s idea for an “instant” ride service.
“It took about three weeks to go from the original prototype to a finished app,” Williams said. Lyft has been going strong ever since.
That wasn’t the last innovation to spring from a Lyft hackathon.
Williams said he purchased an Amazon Echo during the 2015 Black Friday sale. He immediately knew he wanted create an Alexa skill to let Echo users order a “lyft.” Williams dove into the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) documentation, and he started building his prototype at the January hackathon. It was a hit.
Beyond the prototype, Williams estimates the project took three weeks of solid engineering time. The team spent one week working on the core functionality, including adding some workflow to their own API. It spent another week working through edge cases and complex decision trees, so the skill would never leave a user confused or at a dead-end. Finally, they spent another week on testing and analytics, before releasing it for an internal beta with 30 users.
Williams says ASK is very comprehensive, and because it is JSON-based, it makes testing easy. He admits having to add some edge testing to account for cases like asking Lyft for “a banana to work.” (Bananas are a favorite test fruit during certification.) In the end, he knew Lyft had a high-quality skill with near-one hundred percent test coverage.
Amazon published the final Lyft skill in July.
Megan Robershotte is a member of Lyft’s partner marketing team. She explained the Alexa skill fit well with the company’s primary goal: to get people to take their first ride with Lyft.
“We’re growth-focused. Lyft is a convenience you have to experience to appreciate. Alexa makes it just that much easier [for people] to try it. And we hope this new integration will help to drive growth.” She also noted that Alexa helps users develop a regular cadence—a daily routine—one in which Lyft can play a natural part.
The Alexa integration led the team to yet another Lyft innovation. Unlike a web browser or smartphone app, Alexa has no screen or map to specify the user’s end destination. So Lyft added destinations as a core part of the user experience. You can now ask Alexa for a ride to Work, Home or any airport serviced by Lyft.
Williams wanted the new skill to be functional, but he also wanted using it to feel “Lyfty.” That’s a bit hard to explain, unless you’ve experience the Lyft culture for yourself. The Alexa team heard his concern and made suggestions to make the voice interaction feel natural. They also stressed the simpler and fewer choices a user has to remember, the better the interface.
Lyft users seem to agree he hit the mark. The Lyft skill maintains a high star rating in the Alexa app.
Need a ride? Just say Alexa, enable “Lyft” and follow the instructions to link it to your Lyft account.
Are you ready to build your first (or next) Alexa skill? Build a custom skill or use one of our easy tutorials to get started quickly.
Share other innovative ways you’re using Alexa in your life. Tweet us @alexadevs with hashtag #AlexaDevStory.