Cortana has been a huge selling point for those who have recently switched over to Windows 10. The personal assistant has done a great job of helping us all organize our days, set reminders, and open up applications without touching a mouse or keyboard. As fun as all of these uses for Cortana have been, it’s arguable that the personal assistant hasn’t been making a huge impact in the experiences of many users, since the only real use of Cortana at the moment takes place outside of third party applications.
Microsoft thinks it’s time for other developers to learn how to properly use Cortana to make their apps better, so in the recent Microsoft blog post, “Using Cortana to interact with your customers,” they ran through some of the pillars of design that third party developers should keep in mind as they make use of Cortana in their applications.
The blog post ran through some of the basic things to keep in mind as you design the role that Cortana plays in your app, and write up her responses. Microsoft reminds developers to be “efficient, relevant, clear, and trustworthy” when designing Cortana’s responses, and lists a few examples for how to implement the personal assistant in apps (namely opening applications, storing data, and interacting directly with the user.)
Cortana is nothing new, but it’s an exciting prospect to see what developers will do now that the personal assistant’s toolset is available for them to make use of. If nothing else, developers are good at finding creative uses for new software such as Cortana, and they’ll find plenty of ways to make everyone’s favorite personal assistant an integral part of their applications. With users being able to now directly interact with applications hands-free with Cortana, a developer’s ability to make users feel engaged with an application is going to skyrocket.
