Alexa: ‘Happily Ever After’?

By Hemal Vasavada Gill and Chakib Labidi

This article covers primary UX research with Alexa users in London, what we learned and how designers, marketers and product owners can build relevant voice experiences.

It’s Valentine’s day, and you’re anticipating a new relationship in your life with Alexa. You look at her, on the kitchen counter, amongst the salt and pepper shakers. She looks like an awkward teenager at her first school disco. You say, “Alexa, what now?”. Her blue light flashes. You smile in anticipation. She replies, “Now is usually defined as the momentary present”.

The reality of living with a voice assistant is not the romantic AI future painted in films and television. Alexa is not going to start your car and help you chase down criminals anytime soon. Though imperfect, today’s voice assistants do serve a very critical purpose. They’ve successfully introduced voice interactions to the public.

This first phase of mass voice interactivity has concentrated on skills and utility. As expected, most current research measures the types of skills developed and their overall popularity. We know what skills are most often used. This understanding of lead use cases will inform future development and improvement. Amazon, for all we know, is constantly capturing and analysing user data built out of the high…