Season of Docs

Season of Docs 2019

Mycroft is joining the inaugural Season of Docs by Google, a program that brings open source and technical writing communities together, to the benefit of both.

If you are a technical writer, we want you to hear from you! We’re looking for someone to spend three months working closely with our team to improve and expand our documentation. Through this process you will learn about Mycroft’s technology stack, as well as open source software and processes. Participating in this program is also a great skill to add to your resume!

For 2019, we have two exciting projects to choose from:

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Human-Centered Documentation for Artificial Intelligence

Mycroft AI has a range of existing documentation that has grown organically over time. As the platform has rapidly evolved, our documentation hasn’t always been able to keep pace. To provide a great experience for our users, we need to reconsider our documentation from the ground up, starting with the overall information architecture.

Taking a user-centered approach, this project will seek to understand the needs of our users, including non-technical end users, developers, testers, translators and other key contributors to the project.

This will inform the renewal of Mycroft’s documentation, that may include:

  • Developing a new information architecture
  • Identifying gaps or areas of weakness in the content
  • Making recommendations on appropriate documentation platforms
  • Developing new content in collaboration with the community

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Video Series: Getting Started in Voice Skill Development

Mycroft AI is the world’s first open source voice assistant. As the platform has evolved, so have the tools and methods available to the community. Anyone can develop new Skills for Mycroft to solve problems, or interact with the world around them. We aim to make this as accessible as possible for any community member wanting to turn their idea into a voice-based Skill. One of the ways we plan to achieve this is by creating a series of video tutorials on how to get started, and covering some fundamentals of voice-interaction.

To create a Mycroft Skill, it is important to understand a few voice-interaction concepts such as utterances and intents. An utterance is the phrase that a User speaks to a voice assistant, whilst an intent is a structured ways of interpreting what that phrase means to provide the best possible answer or result. Concepts like this are generally new to anyone getting started in voice-interaction and Skill development. With well-structured content and clear communication, we can help users understand this domain-specific language and provide the greatest chance of success.

This project includes mapping out a short curriculum, recording videos, and sharing them with our open source community.

Possible video subjects include:

  • Starting out in Mycroft Skill development
  • Key concepts in voice interaction
  • Designing the interaction flow
  • Creating your first Skill

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