Quick Bites

A Voice Interaction Design Case Study

The Design Process

Brainstorming

Researching + Creating User and System Personas

User Stories + Alexa Developer Console

Revising the code within Amazon Developer Console to align with different utterances and prompts

Usability Testing

Conducting Usability Tests and reiterating on my designs

The Problem

Using voice devices can be a quick, convenient, and maybe even fun way of interacting with technology if the tasks are simple. However, if these tasks become more complex… say when creating a recipe and cooking guide, a slew of challenges can arise.

  • Introducing users to Quick Bites in a clear and concise way.

  • Providing or recommending recipes for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner.

  • Guiding users through the cooking process using only voice.

  • Allowing users to favorite their desired recipes.

Challenges to Tackle

“Voice assistance should be quick. I imagine just trying to use it everyday, you don’t want to have this long discussion with your voice assistant about recipes. You just want to get information and then keep going on with your day.”

Personas

USER PERSONA

VOICE SYSTEM PERSONA

Voice Interaction User Stories

User Flow and Sample Dialog

User flows are the vital blueprints of a seamless journey within voice interaction design. After coming up with some user stories, it was time to implement them into a user flow setting the stage for my design’s structural framework.

Voice Scripts

Voice scripts were created prior to user testing to help build the skill and implement the text into the coding. As a result from user testing, the voice scripts ended up consisting of 6 categories:

  • Introductions

  • Choosing a Meal

  • Ingredients

  • Cooking Time

  • Favorite Recipes

  • Globals

User Testing resulted in both major and minor edits and additions to the scripts. You can see the script results here.

USABILITY TESTING

Testing consisted of 5 moderated remote tests. Findings from the usability testing pinpointed both significant and minor adjustments necessary. Here are the results:

Takeaways

Creating a voice user interface has proven to be quite a challenge. Going through the design process with an emphasis on voice has shown me a new perspective within the realm of design, and opened up a world of opportunities to create more intuitive and accessible user experiences. Quick Bites is my first user interface design project but it will definitely not be the last. Now, with new implementations utilizing AI, a whole new horizon seems to be opening up, and I am ready to enter into it.