AMAZON ALEXA DESIGN CHALLENGE: How can I make the Alexa app more user-friendly and intelligent?
My first step was to get organized and create a list of steps for the entire project. I began by doing research and gathering information about Alexa, the devices, and the app. I looked up articles and videos, took notes, read various reviews, and started interviewing people I knew that owned an Alexa device and use the app frequently. I got together with one of my friends so I could play around with his Echo and Echo Dots to become more familiar with the devices and the app.
As I learned more, I came to the conclusion that Alexa’s purpose is to make actions more hands free and help people with their day-to-day activities and life, while answering questions and performing simple tasks such as telling someone their daily schedule or playing music when asked. The whole experience is very interesting, and after working on this project, I may just have to go purchase one of the devices myself!
However, throughout the process of learning, I realized that the Alexa app is more of a remote control for using Alexa devices such as the Echo or Echo Dot. It helps you set up your devices, and allows you to program aspects for it such as adding skills for Alexa or adding in your location for weather or traffic updates. Users are obviously supposed to focus more on speaking to her than using the app. That was the trickiest part of the challenge — how would I make the Alexa app more interactive, visual, intelligent, and user-friendly so that people WANT to use it more?
I had to identify a problem with the app experience and come up with a solution. After a lot of brainstorming, I identified several problems and improvements that could be made to the app, and then provided solutions on how to visually fix them. After finally using the app myself and conducting interviews, I realized that one of the biggest problems with the devices and corresponding app is that users are unable to connect them together. Many people own more than one Alexa device, and it would be much more user-friendly and intelligent if actions you were performing on one of the devices could be easily synced with or switched to another, right in the app.
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USER PERSONA
After refining my idea further, I developed a persona to help explain my concept and communicate issues with the app from a user perspective.
Matt
• 26 years old
• Single
• Writer
• Boston, MA
Matt owns four Amazon Alexa devices. He has two Echo’s and two Echo Dot’s all spread throughout different rooms and floors of his house. Matt enjoys listening to music throughout most of his day, especially while relaxing or in the background while doing work. His Alexa devices are great because they will play whatever music he desires, whenever he wants. However, Matt gets frustrated when he moves throughout his house and the devices he owns are not able to connect to one another in any way. He is unable to sync his devices to have multi-room music playing, and he cannot switch actions between devices.
Matt wishes that there was a quick and easy way to connect his Alexa devices so he is able to pick and choose which ones to sync together and/or which ones to switch between.
SOLVING THE PROBLEM / ADDING NEW FEATURES
To solve the problem that Matt and many other Alexa users are having, I have created a feature within the app located right in the navigation menu called “Connect”, where it allows users to connect, sync, and/or switch actions between all of their Alexa devices very easily. I demonstrated this feature through my app designs with a hypothetical scenario in which my downstairs Echo is being used to play music, and I want to sync my upstairs Echo to it so that they will both be playing the same song in different locations in my house. I am able to sync the current music playing from my downstairs Echo to my upstairs Echo right through the app with a few quick taps. Another function that this feature incorporates is being able to switch actions between different devices. Say if I was playing music on the downstairs Echo and I wanted to switch the music to play on the upstairs Echo, I would be able to do that as well.
In my Alexa app redesign, I also added a feature on the top right corner of the screen where users can click on it and speak to Alexa directly. I believe this is also a very important feature that should be added to the app because it would make it more intelligent and user-friendly. At the moment, users can only speak to Alexa through their devices in their home, or through the actual Amazon shopping app. However, if Alexa was integrated in the Alexa app, people would be able to utilize her on the fly from where ever they may be. This aspect would also make the app much more interactive and give it a better overall experience.
