Maximizing efficiency in food preparation without sacrificing taste.
Express Kitchen
Making fun and delicious meals can be challenging when it feels like everyone is short on time. Express Kitchen is an Alexa skill designed to guide users through creating healthy, delicious meals in 30 minutes or less.
Role: Conversational (VUI) Designer
Scope: 6 weeks
Tools: Alexa Developer Console
Methods: Personas, User Stories, Sample Dialogs, User Flows, Scripts
A necessary step towards building this skill was creating a user persona to capture my target users, along with a system persona that represented who they would enjoy speaking with.
I developed sample dialogs to demonstrate how a user would interact with the system.
Each sample dialogue addressed common goals a user would likely want to achieve with the Alexa skill.
I created a user flow to map out how all the intents in the skill related to one another.
Next, I built out the voice script for the Alexa skill. In some instances, I went back and forth between my user flows and the script to ensure the script was comprehensive.
You can view the full script here: Express Kitchen Voice Script
I recruited 4 participants for usability testing. They were selected based on:
How often they engaged with VUIs
How often they prepared new foods
How important it was to have a quick, home-cooked meal
Issue 1: Greeting included specific language about breakfast and lunch, yet did not understand when repeated back by the user
Suggested Change: updated meal type slot to also include food in the language (now reads breakfast food, lunch food, etc.)
Issue 2: When a ‘no’ response includes additional words or phrases, the system does not understand the response
Suggested Change: update intents to include additional ways to decline besides just “no”
Issue 3: Tester asked Alexa to remind them of the recipe they chose
Suggested Change: Explore including a feature that can repeat the name of the recipe while the tester is listening to the ingredients
Issue 4: Tester interrupts Alexa while the system is speaking
Suggested Change: Explore the possibility of a barge-in feature
Conclusion
Usability testing was very helpful! I was able to identify additional intents that would allow users to move through the skill with less friction. I was also able to identify features that are not currently a part of the skill but are intuitive in natural conversation that would create a better user experience. Things such as being able to interrupt Alexa, or ask her to repeat something that was stated earlier in the dialogue would be helpful.
I updated the code to reflect the changes that I could make at this time, such as additional intents. I will have to explore possibilities for features that could not be immediately changed, such as the barge-in feature.