Hello, my name is Monica.
I am a UX Designer focused on systems and architecture, building connected experiences across the Alexa family of devices.
Alexa Object Model
Alexa powers a broad ecosystem of devices and experiences that span across many multimodal interactions like the Echo, Fire TV, headless devices, and other 3rd party devices.
Context
As Alexa expanded from voice commands to an AI agent, experiences became increasingly fragmented, with inconsistent structures, duplicated patterns, and limited scalability across teams and surfaces.
There was a need for a unified system that could support consistent and flexible experiences across devices that enable new capabilities such as those introduced with upcoming Alexa+ launch, this effort was conducted two years prior to release so that the work could be conducted with enough time to spread to the vertical product teams. I led the Object, Content, and Monetization model efforts on a tiger team.
There was a need for a unified system that could support consistent and flexible experiences across devices that enable new capabilities such as those introduced with upcoming Alexa+ launch, this effort was conducted two years prior to release so that the work could be conducted with enough time to spread to the vertical product teams. I led the Object, Content, and Monetization model efforts on a tiger team.
Gaps
The core issue was structural and mostly agreed upon by experience makers and systems team. The problem was that Alexa Devices were defined at the presentation layer rather than through a shared system. The devices were built with Alexa Presentation Language. Some of the structures were inconsistent for the templates leading to fragmented interactions, duplicated components, and increased complexity between devices.
Problem Areas
1. Some capabilities were accessible on some devices but not others
2. Inconsistent organization and navigation between viewports
3. Conflicting interaction between voice, touch, and remote modalities
4. Dynamic content was not readily accessible to customers
5. Fragmented UX writing and nomenclature happened across products
6. These inconsistencies forced customers to learn different mental models for each device, increasing cognitive load and removing the value of owning our family of devices.
1. Some capabilities were accessible on some devices but not others
2. Inconsistent organization and navigation between viewports
3. Conflicting interaction between voice, touch, and remote modalities
4. Dynamic content was not readily accessible to customers
5. Fragmented UX writing and nomenclature happened across products
6. These inconsistencies forced customers to learn different mental models for each device, increasing cognitive load and removing the value of owning our family of devices.
The Goal
Establish a unified object model for Alexa that enables consistent and scalable experiences across devices to support multimodal interaction patterns, reduce fragmentation, and enable faster development of new capabilities.
The Opportunity
Instead of rewarding customers for investing into our family of devices, our system was introducing friction and making each additional device harder to learn and use. The lack of a shared system resulted in duplicated efforts (button-palooza) with many design systems and implementations being maintained across teams, slowing down development and reducing efficiency. Each capability looked like it came from a different business and our internal fractures were being represented in the interface.
The Challenge
1. Gaining consensus on how to prioritize and govern a unified system this large
2. Aligning on a shared approach that brings harmony across teams
3. Balancing consistency while allowing for product-level differentiation and sub-brand representation
4. Securing engineering investment for the object model
2. Aligning on a shared approach that brings harmony across teams
3. Balancing consistency while allowing for product-level differentiation and sub-brand representation
4. Securing engineering investment for the object model
System Architecture
Object Inventory
Establishes a consistent framework of objects, actions, and collections that define how capabilities are represented and interacted with across the platform.
State Framework
Defines how an object behaves across different conditions to capture current status and how it transitions based on events to create predictable behaviors.
Content and Monetization Model
Decouples the business logic of what is paid, free, or promoted from the UI to allow entitlements to be applied consistently across experiences.
Strategy
The strategy shifts the focus away from point solution and individual endpoints (devices) towards thinking and executing solutions across the entire portfolio of offerings and solves customer needs at a harmonious Family level.
Size-based Repository
The components are defined by a scale rather than a platform to allow for them to flex contexts without being tied down to a specific device or brand value, teams can skin without redefining.
Object Structure
Defined a platform-level object model that structures Alexa experiences around shared entities, actions, and relationships. These structures are independent of the presentation layer. This approach shifts from a UI defined experience to a system-driven model, where capabilities are represented consistently and can be dynamically configured across devices and contexts. Under the hood, we rely on inheritance and event-driven logic for the details of it all. The model establishes a foundation for how those capabilities are surfaced and how responses are generated across modalities.
Configuration Driven Experiences
This system uses configuration rules to dynamically generate the experiences across devices. Instead of designing separate interfaces for each surface, capabilities are defined once and adapted based on context to allow for the same interaction to be expressed similarly with voice on headless Echo device, remote on Fire TV, or touch on a phone. This approach enables consistent behaviors across the object inventory while supporting flexible multimodal experiences across the system.
Screens
Outcomes
The object model established a scalable foundation for Alexa’s evolving ecosystem, enabling more consistent, flexible, and cohesive experiences across devices. The model reduced fragmentation, improved internal efficiency, and aligned teams around a shared system for building and scaling experiences for the upcoming launch of Alexa+.
I built flows that represented the model and applied the AI agent to a prototype. The prototype was shared with the vice president to commit to building for the entire OS.
The work trickled over to the product teams, including Fire TV, and I migrated to that team to begin working on bringing this to life, which you’ll see in another case study.
I built flows that represented the model and applied the AI agent to a prototype. The prototype was shared with the vice president to commit to building for the entire OS.
The work trickled over to the product teams, including Fire TV, and I migrated to that team to begin working on bringing this to life, which you’ll see in another case study.