Alexa, add batteries to my cart.

Redesigned and launched the Add to Cart multimodal experience on Echo Show devices.

Here's the live experience on my Echo Show 5:

Background

One thing that sets the Echo Show apart from other smart assistants, is the power to shop on Amazon just by using your voice. But previously, when you said, for example “Alexa, add Kind Bars to my cart,” you’d see this:

While this screen confirms for the customer that Alexa heard them correctly, it doesn’t provide enough information for them to confidently purchase it. We wanted to change this.

My goal was to update this screen with more helpful product information and make customers feel more confident to make a purchase.

Initial exploration

I observed there was low purchase rates and engagement with the older version of the Add to Cart screen.

My hypothesis was that this was for 2 reasons:

1. Customers don’t have enough information to confirm that the product is one they want to purchase.

2. Upon seeing that the product was added to cart, customers lack an incentive to follow through with a purchase.

I determined I could leverage the structure of Amazon’s existing product detail page but pare it down to the most essential information appropriate for a voice interaction with clear calls to action for customers.

Process

My task to update the add to cart CX was complicated by the fact that at the same time, our team was transitioning to Alexa Presentation Language, which lets developers build multimodal skills for Amazon Alexa that support both a voice and visual experience. This meant our design team needed a system of patterns for multimodal experiences. Our APL partner team in London were the ones trailblazing this new design system initiative. However it was still very early-game and no one in Seattle was onboarding onto that system.

I volunteered to trial the new system for this project. 

I first reached out to London, learned the system, and was encouraged to stress test it as much as possible. Being the first designer from another team to test the system, I gave feedback on what I liked about the system and areas where I thought it could be improved for a new designer onboarding to APL. I influenced new APL design patterns and empowered the rest of my Seattle-based team to start using this system.

Through this project, I designed an updated add to cart CX, including accessibility specs for a screen reader version of this experience for users who are blind, while forging a brand new process of designing multimodal experiences in collaboration with our APL team in London.

Results

Metrics

1. We saw statistically significant higher conversion rates on Alexa across the board after a customer added something to their cart.

2. I created a new template in the APL design system that other designers are able to leverage for their own purposes.

3. A bonus was that I became the first designer on my team who worked closely with our APL team to create multimodal experiences end-to-end. I bridged knowledge gaps in my Seattle team and circulated a new design process that empowered other designers to work on their own multimodal experiences.

Learnings

1. How to design a multimodal experience from start to finish.

2. The importance of creating clear accessibility specs for engineers to make sure we are designing delightful UX for all users, not just sighted people.

3. How to have a successful cross-collaboration with a partner team across the ocean (through simultaneous early and late meetings, over-communication, and great teammates).

4. It was a wonderful experience collaborating with my team, of mainly senior designers that I continue to learn so much from. It was awesome to play with, and occasionally break the design system that they built.

The final design