WWDC2018-Intro-to-Siri-Shortcuts-Notes.md

WWDC 2018 - Introduction to Siri Shortcuts

• Shortcuts let you expose the capabilities of your apps to Siri
• Siri surfaces intents that people do with your apps in Search, Watch, and on Lock screen
  • Tapping on a shortcut can open it up inline with rich preview
• It can also be used with Siri directly and can show a custom view screen
• Apps can provide custom response dialog
  • It'll say things such as “how long it will take for your coffee to be ready”
• Users can choose a custom phrase when adding a shortcut to Siri
  • Developers can suggest what phrase to use such as “Coffee time”
  • Once it's been added it'll work on all devices such as Watch and Homepod
• Shortcuts app lets users build their own shortcuts
  • Including shortcuts defined by your app
• 3 Steps for creating a Shortcut
  • Define a Shortcut
    • What you want to expose and each one so Siri knows what your app wants to do
  • Donate Shortcut
    • Tell the system everytime a user does something in the app that you have a shortcut for
  • Handle Shortcut
    • When user wants to use shortcut, you need to be ready for app or app extension to be invoked.
• Consider what are the most important things people will want to do with your app
  • This is likely what you'll want to expose shortcuts for
• Every shortcut should:
  • Accelerate the user to perform a key function of your app
  • Be of persistent interest to the user
  • Be executable at any time
• There are two APIs that support Shortcut adoption
  • NSUserActivity
    • lightweight way to represent state of app
    • integrates with Spotlight and Hand Off
  • Intents
    • represent in detail type of action an app can perform
    • comes with built in intents that apps can use to integrate with Siri
    • custom intents can be defined
• Choosing an Adoption strategy:
  • NSUserActivity
    • Opens something in your app
    • Represents showing items that you index in Spotlight or use for Handoff
  • Intents
    • Run inline without launching your app
    • Include custom voice response or a custom UI
    • Include granular predictions
• Adopting with NSUserActivity
  • First define the shortcut!
  • Declare a type in NSUserActivityTypes in Info.plist

  • <key>NSUserActivityTypes</key>
    <array>
      <string>com.myapp.name.my-activity-type</string>
    </array>
    

  • We then need to donate the shortcut
  • Everytime a user is looking at a screen that corresponds with a Shortcut you want to expose in your app, you should create a NSUserActivity object
  • isEligibleForPrediction needs to be set to true to be a shortcut along with the isEligibleForSearch
  • Store all info you'll need to restore activity later on in userInfo
  • Mark activity as current by attaching it to UIViewController or UIResponder object that's on screen
    • viewController.userActivity = userActivity // marks as current
  • The shortcut should be handled via the AppDelegate method: continueUserActivity
    • If this activity type matches what was registered then we need to restore state of app
• Adopting with Intents
  • Define the shortcut
  • Decide what type of intent you'd want to adopt?
    • Messaging, Workouts, Lists etc
    • Custom too!
  • Create an intent definition file in Xcode to customize a built-in SiriKit intent OR define a new custom intent
    • File → New File → SiriKit Intent Definition File
  • Example: Soup delivery app to allow easy way to order soup!
    • Intent Metadata
      • Give Intent a name: Order Soup
      • Category: Order
      • Description and Confirmation from User are additional metadata
    • Intent Parameters
      • Parameters are a dictionary
      • Custom types are allowed along with String, Number etc
    • Shortcut Types
      • All type of shortcuts you'd like to be suggested to the user
      • Along with formats of how to display parameters
      • Specify if Background use is supported
      • Background supported are suggested more frequently
    • Xcode will autogenerate Intent class and protocol for handling the Order
      • OrderSoupIntent: INIntent and OrderSoupIntentHandling protocol
      • Consider which target this is being added to
      • If you have no app specific frameworks, check the target for every single target in your app
    • To donate the intent object:
      • Insatiate the intent every time the user performs the event corresponding to the Shortcut
    • Handling custom intent
      • “continueUserActivity” is also used to handle the Intent
      • Passed as a NSUserActivity whose activityType is the name of the Intent
      • If you ONLY implement continueUserActivity then it'll open in foreground only
      • You'll want to create an extension: IntentExtensionTemplate in order to handle the Intent in the background
        • Conform to IntentHandling protocol in extension
        • In confirm, you should check that all properties are valid otherwise return the error code if you're unable to handle the intent
        • Then perform the shortcut with response object that indicates outcome
    • Implement intent extension for shortcuts that can run in background without launching the app
    • Implement -continueWithUserActivity even if you have an intents extensions
      • User can choose to open the app from the shortcut
  • INRelevantShortcut
    • Ways to expose shortcut to the Siri watchface
    • Works even if you don't have a watch app and they can be shown on Siri Watchface
• How is a shortcut suggested?
  • The system will look at the time, location, and other signals
  • Time
    • Time of day and day of week
  • Location
    • Check if location is significant for that user (aka home, work etc)
• Imagine a UserActivity for placing a soup order
  • Imagine UserInfo with Soup, Quantity, and scrollPosiiton
  • scrollPosition could change and Siri may be unable to find a pattern effectively
  • Specify requiredUserInfoKeys which is minimum info necessary required to define the intent
• What makes a good donation?
  • Likely to be repeated
  • Ensure payload donating is consistent
  • Don't include timestamps
    • Example reminder on June 5th vs today
  • Donate once and only for each user action
• Custom Intents
  • Use enums when the values for a parameter are clearly bounded
    • Ex. Size for soup would be good candidate
  • Custom results in INObject
    • INObject combines identifier with a display string
    • Identifier references internal object
    • display string conveys object to the user
    • Prevents possible implicit dependencies between parameters
• Shortcut Display
  • Developer settings let you see donated shortcuts in Spotlight
  • Editing Xcode schemes to automatically invoke Siri with Phrase
    • Siri Intent Query field with phrase to activate Siri
  • Create a Custom Shortcut using Shortcuts app
• Privacy Considerations
  • Users expect that when you delete something from app that it's deleted for good
  • Don't suggest content that's no longer relevant
    • Delete donations when something gets deleted
    • When user logs out, you can delete all saved user activities
  • Delete invalid donations when appropriate