Alexa Connect Kit—Design Career
Alexa Connect Kit (ACK) is a new-to-world web platform that makes it easy for companies to integrate Alexa functionality into their hardware products.
I was the first designer to work on the web platform, built for OEM and ODM engineering partners at companies like Hamilton Beach, Koehler and Midea, to prototype Alexa functionality into their new-to-world hardware products. For almost a year, I grew my design role into a strategic partnership with Product and Engineering by leading user research efforts with the companies mentioned above, giving our organization a better understanding of where our product fit within the hardware development lifecycle of other real-world companies.
Below you’ll find summaries of my favorite contributions to the team.
Viewing Modules
Web & Voice Experience
Overview: My first feature-task was to enable Development Portal users to see their Hardware Modules as well as their Product Blueprints. With ACK, a Product Blueprint is essentially a digital representation of all of that product’s Alexa-related attributes and functionality. A few examples of this are: Will a customer be able to ask Alexa to turn your device’s light on/off? What about changing the hue of the light? What should customers call your product when they ask Alexa? How will your hardware product appear in the Alexa app? Working on this feature required me to become intimately familiar with Alexa capabilities as well as how users were currently prototyping their hardware products; it was a very complex process, but this feature was the first step to bringing useful information and eventually interactivity into the ACK web platform.
Process Summary: I created low, mid, and hi-fidelity mockups of the Development Portal experience allowing users to see hardware modules, product blueprints, and additional resources, then worked closely with the Engineering team to push the build forward and address any bugs or issues along the way.
Business Impact: Reduced manual processes for Portal users allowing them to more-quickly prototype and test Alexa functionality with their proprietary hardware.
Creating Product Blueprints
Web & Voice Experience
Overview: As project development moved forward, my next task was to provide a way for users to create a Product Blueprint from scratch. Before I designed this feature, this was a completely manual process for our users; they had to email functional details to our Solutions Architect, who would then relay that to our Engineering team, who would then manually create the Product Blueprint. Although this feature didn’t allow users to add every piece of information they wanted, it was the first step to enabling them to do so.
Process Summary: I created low, mid, and hi-fidelity mockups of the experience, then worked closely with the Engineering team to push the build forward and address any bugs or issues along the way.
Business Impact: Further reduced manual processes for users, allowing them to more-quickly prototype and test Alexa functionality with their proprietary hardware.
View & Edit Product Blueprint
Web & Voice Experience
Overview: Next, I worked on providing the ability to see and edit existing Product Blueprints. Again, this functionality provided users with the ability to circumvent manual processes that ate-up time and energy.
Process Summary: I created low, mid, and hi-fidelity mockups of the experience, allowing users to view and edit Product Blueprints, then worked closely with the Engineering team to push the build forward and address any bugs or issues along the way.
Business Impact: Further reduced manual processes for users, allowing them to more-quickly prototype and test Alexa functionality with their proprietary hardware.
Adding Capability Interfaces
Web & Voice Experience
Overview: Next, I was taken with designing an experience that allowed users to choose Alexa Capability Interfaces that they wanted to include in their product blueprint. This functionality meant that users could quickly prototype Alexa functionality on a piece of hardware without needing to interact with our Solution Architect at all; a huge time saver.
Process Summary: I created low, mid, and hi-fidelity mockups of the experience, allowing users to add Alexa Capability Interfaces to their Product Blueprints, enabling complete self-service hardware prototyping for users.
Business Impact: Significantly reduced manual processes for users by allowing them to prototype and test universal Alexa-integrated functionality in our web experience.
Information Architecture
Web Experience
Overview: My early work leading customer interviews and research helped me develop a deep understanding of what an optimal experience might look like for our users. So when time allowed, I kicked off a parallel project to design a North Star architecture.
Process Summary: I created an end-to-end system architecture diagram and a number of exemplary screens to communicate how the new architecture would lend itself to our new understanding of our customers.
Business Impact: This work provided our Product and Design teams with a vision to work towards as we planned and re-arranged priorities, ultimately shaping the future roadmap. The artifacts served as invaluable mechanisms to helped the Product team make near-term decisions based on a long-term experiential goals.
Architecture Snapshot:
One More Thing
A Short Retrospective
Working on this product helped me grow in so many ways I couldn’t have imagined. It was the first time in my career that I’d worked on a product as its solo designer, and I not only found myself growing, but pushing other stakeholders to understand where Design fits in the larger process of delivering best-in-class products that address real customer needs.