Jay Suthar, Senior UX/UI designer at Hi Mum! Said Dad and Lucy Scott, Senior UX Researcher at John Lewis

1. Taking our first leap into voice design
Making an
Educake
Jay Suthar & Lucy Scott

3. Speaking faster than typing
Input Speed
Convenience
Intuitiveness
Accessibility
Invisible & Transient
Linear
Privacy
Output Speed
Hands free, shortcut
Everyone knows how to talk, natural
Accessible for those with motor, cognitive
& visual disabilities
Reading rate is faster than listening
You can’t skim through information
Interface discoverability, heavy toll on cognitive load
Who is else is listening?
STRENGTHS & LIMITATIONS OF VOICE

4. PLACEONAS
Place. Situation. Activity
Hands Free
Eyes Free
Ear Free
Voice Restricted
Hands Free
Eyes Free
Ear Busy
Voice Busy
Hands Dirty
Eyes Free
Ear Free
Voice Free
🤫 👂👐

5. Conduct
discovery
research
VOICE DESIGN PROCESS
Define personality
of skill
Create sample
dialogues
Prototype/test Design granular
functionality with
user flows

6. Millennials Young Families
Kids
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
I use it a lot when the kids
ask me random questions
and I’m busy doing other
stuff.
Mother of 6 & 9 year olds
Mia uses it all the time
on my phone and the
TV remote. Seems like
kids are the biggest
users.
Mother of 7 year old
🍳
🎮
⏲🤖
🗣
⏰

7. Greater Interest More feasibleRelevant placeona
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
C🍪🥘king

8. Users mentioned needing to frequently:
Replacement ingredients
Measure converter
Calorie counter
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
However Alexa skills already offering this…
How could we provide something new?
🍅
📏
🧮
🤔

9. DISCOVERY RESEARCH
We love baking together. It
feels like a lovely bonding
time.
Mother of 4 year old and
baby twins
Baking together is our
Saturday night treat.
Mother of 4 year old
Have to say, I love the idea
of cooking with Alexa.
Zander would absolutely
adore it too. It would be a
great way to get them to try
new foods which is a
constant battle.
Mother of 8 year old
“
”
🍪
👨🍳
🧁

10. DISCOVERY RESEARCH
There’s a long stage at the end which
Rosie can’t be involved with while the
cakes and baking, cooling and need to
be tested.
She gets really impatient.
Mother of 4 year old
“
”
Ethan is obsessed with making cakes -
he loves the creation aspect.
But he hates the end part - he literally
stares at the oven until they are baked
Father of 4 and 7 year olds
⏲
😤

11. Lots of focus on teaching children about food and nutrition.
Current gap in Alexa skills.
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
👩🏫 🍔 🥗 🍩 🍎

12. INITIAL IDEA
Recipe read out
step by step
Interspersed with fun
facts relating to
ingredients
Entertaining quiz at
the end to test
child’s learning
during downtime
🥒 💬 🎭

13. INITIAL IDEA
Recipe read out
step by step
Interspersed with fun
facts relating to
ingredients
Entertaining quiz at
the end to test
child’s learning
during downtime
Challenging
Not feasible
Quiz relieves biggest
pain point.
😟
🥒 💬 🎭
⏲😤

14. Jennifer, 39
• Place VUI on clear space - has ingredients on work surface; avoid device
getting dirty or adding to clutter.
• Potential background noise from kitchen devices may interfere with VUI’s
comprehension. Already struggles to understand children’s voices.
PERSONA
Kitchen
Environment
• Heighten fun and interest of experience - enjoyable time together.
• Her kids be comfortable with food and help them become healthier eaters.
• Teach her kids about food (origins, nutrition, senses, maths science,
geography, spelling)
• Enhance child’s practical skills and self-sufficiency.
• Children get bored and frustrated during periods they are less involved
with baking activity and when waiting at end.
• Difficult to use other devices whilst baking as hands are dirty.
• Already multi-tasking with baking, clearing surfaces with focus on
supervising kids.
• Bake with children every other weekend.
• Tries to entertain and teach her kids whilst baking and clearing away.
Married with two children
Libby, aged 6 & Ted, aged 4
Goals
Current
Behaviours
Pains

15. PHASES DISCOVER SET UP FIRST TIME USE REGULAR USE
INTERACTIONS
/ TOUCH
POINTS
Word of mouth, mums net,
from other kids, skill store
- Account link to our skill
- Turn on Kids skills… (quizzes for
kids on skill store)
- Parent starts up - Kids invokes or interacts
- Skills remembers the user and what
they did last, what they were asked
NEEDS - Entertain their children
- Increase knowledge of
cooking
- De-stress the parent if kids
are impatient during the
baking process
- Remember me and my family - Kids engaged with questions
or quizzes
- Expand knowledge
- Skill confirms what it does...
- Kids engaged with questions or
quizzes
- Expand knowledge
- Reward
QUESTIONS - How would the user find
this Skill?
- Do they need to activate Kids
skill? So amazon does not store
children's voices?
- What age is the policy/data
security applicable for?
- Do they need an account?
- Where will Alexa reference the
recipe from?
- Where will Alexa obtain sound
effects?
- How will Alexa download and
store the ingredients?
- Mixed questions or specific
topic questions?
- Need a range of questions for
the user (kid) to be engaged
with
- Tone of voice (sesame street,
kids TV show) - friendly
- Target our experience to the
age group
- Can we use voice profile to
identify user?
- Can we use voice profile to identify
user?
How reward? Intrinsic/ extrinsic?
- Accumulate points?
- Expertise levels?
- Gamification? Design for repeat
use?
- Can the user use the skill without
cooking or baking?
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP

16. ADVICE ON KIDS SKILLS
https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/kids
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/alexa-design/child-directed.html
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/
38e7a87d-2ba2-465a-b038-65ac9576027d/10-more-tips-for-
building-stellar-alexa-skills-for-kids
https://www.slideshare.net/stephengay/vui-new-ixda

17. Starting and exiting a
conversation
Progressing through a
conversation
Repairing a
conversation
1. Giving the right amount of info
about the skill
2. Making all options top level
3. Providing a clear and easy exit
1. Allow users to speak naturally
2. Ask questions appropriately
3. Provide appropriate confirmations
4. Be cooperative and natural
5. Provide a personalised experience
1. Provide appropriate feedback
about issues
2. Re-prompt appropriately
3. Allow informative disconfirmation
4. Provide appropriate help
5. Allow repeats
CONVERSATION DESIGN BEST PRACTICES
🤔🗣👋

18. SCRIPTING DIALOG FLOW

19. USER TESTING OPTIONS

20. PROTOTYPE 1
Welcome
{name}
{age}
{recipe}
End
Q1.
Sound
Effects
Q2.
Ingredients
Q3.
Food Sound
Q4.
Math
Q5.
Spelling

21. SAMPLE UTTERANCES

22. ADDING POLISHING TO VOICE
Hey there, welcome to Educake!
Let's play a quiz about the recipe
you’ve made today. This can help you
learn fun food facts and practice
your maths and spelling.
Hey, welcome to
We can play a quiz about the recipe you’ve made
today to learn fun facts and practice your maths
and spelling.
To start playing Educake, please tell me your name.
<break time=‘500ms'/>
<audio src=‘soundbank://soundlibrary/ui/
gameshow/amzn_ui_sfx_gameshow_bridge_02'/>
<emphasis level="strong">
</emphasis>
</p>
<p>
Educake!
using SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language)
😴 😌

23. CONVERSATIONAL MARKERS
Timelines Acknowledgments Positive feedback
“First,”
“Halfway there”
“Finally”
“Thanks”
“Got it”
“Alright”
“Sorry about that”
Good job”
“Nice to hear that”
☝ 😃 😇

24. PROTOTYPE 1 LEARNINGS
Keep questions
simple
Manage
expectations
Make it age
appropriate
Allow user
control
Extend use of
sound effects
Retain variety
of questions
• Max 3 choices of
minimum wording
• 5 questions in a
row were too many
• Have pen and
paper nearby
• Make multiple
choice explicit
• Spelling difficult
for 5 years old
• Using phonemes
not letters
• Combinations of
maths, spelling,
ingredient origins and
riddles worked well
🥺🥺🥺 🥺 🥳 🥳

25. PROTOTYPE ITERATIONS

26. BUILD 5

27. BUILD 5

28. PROTOTYPE 2 LEARNINGS
Provide adequate
time for answers
Review multiple choice
vs open ended
Scope for repeating
questions & answers
Ensure positive
tone of voice
🤔🥺🥺🥺

29. SKILL ICON

30. Age Appropriate Clear & Simple Rewarding Positive FunAccommodating
KIDS SKILLS SHOULD BE…

31. Ensure voice is
useful and relevant.
A FINAL WORD…
Keep it simpleTest continuously amongst
yourselves and users.
Be aware of
prototype limitations.

32. Thank
You