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Quick Bites

A Conversation Design project using the Alexa developer counsel

Designing dialog and deploying an Alexa skill that allows users to browse several recipes, then select one and have Alexa assist with the meal preparation.

Project Overview

Objective: To allow users to select from among several options for quick meals, then follow step-by-step directions to prepare the selected meal.

Design Process

01

Brainstorm & Research

Research, user persona, system persona, user flow, and sample dialog & scripts.

02

User Stories & AWS Lambada

Adding code in Amazon Developer console, adding utterances and prompt IDs.

03

Usability Testing

Amazon Alexa Developer console, WOZ testing, uncovering pain points, and adjusting code.

04

Final Skill Demo

Final test and demo of the Quick Bites skill.

My Role

Conversation Voice Designer

To show the voice design process from start to finish.

The Problem

Making a meal might be challenging in today's hectic environment, thus users need an efficient method for doing it.

Tools

Alexa Developer Console
Figma

Timeline

3 Months

July - September

Voice System Persona

The system's persona was created in a way that can enable users to more easily relate to the recipe skill.

Proto Persona

The goal of the proto persona was to represent the usual busy individual who could benefit from a hands-free recipe skill to make cooking more convenient.

User Stories

User stories were created to capture how people generally search for recipes, navigate the available recipes, and preference in receiving directions for meal preparation.

Scenario 1

Provide recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

Scenario 2

Provide an adequate number of meal choices for the user to get value from the app.

Scenario 3

Use the recipe while cooking.

Scenario 4

Allow the user to choose their preferred meal.

User Flow & Dialog

Sample Dialog

I created sample dialogs for the most compelling user stories. This includes user stories that:

Give the best idea of what the app does.
Has the richest back and forths.
Covers the most common errors that I think that users might encounter.

In order to determine whether the user experience makes sense and to allow for early corrections before moving on to the script, I developed sample dialog.

The Script

The user flow, sample dialog, and script all work together to help break down the overall experience into scenes.

Usability Testing & Results

I tested 5 participants to assess the learnability for new users interacting with the voice application for the first time. I wanted to observe and measure if users understand the app and could complete core tasks such as:

● Opening Quick Bites

● Navigate Quick Bites i.e. finding and selecting a recipe, get guided through a recipe, repeating a recipe step

● Understand the challenges with using Quick Bites

● Find out if users find it easy or difficult to use

Errors were measured using Jakob Nielsen’s scale. After reviewing the usability test results, I came up with potential fixes and next actions.

I measured satisfaction on each task/scenario by using the Single Easy Question (SEQ) 7-point rating scale. Overall, the majority of users were able to finish their tasks and did so without much difficulty.

After analyzing the results from the usability study, I updated the code in the Alexa Developer Console for the Quick Bites skill accordingly.

You can find my certified skill in Alexa Skills

Alexa Quick Bites Skill Demo

Thoughts & Lessons Learned

Conversation design is in the beginning stages

The field of conversation design is developing quickly, and what we see now is just the beginning. With advancing technology and shifting consumer expectations and behavior, we are still learning, developing, and adjusting. It is a good time to be innovative and keep pushing forward without getting too hung up on how much further along we feel conversation design should be.

Design for how people speak

Instead of designing for how you want people to speak, design for how they really do.

Security and privacy is important

Security and privacy is main concern when it comes to voice design. When designing for voice, we must keep in mind that our main responsibility should be to safeguard the data of our users.

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