ACTION MENU PROTOTYPING & RESEARCH

 The Alexa home experience struggled to address user expectations around content re-engagement. The Action Menu prototype explored how to proactively surface past interactions and smarter recommendations to enhance user retention.

Key Goals

  • Discover how users expect to re-engage with previous content.

  • Explore opportunities to integrate proactive recommendations into Alexa’s home interface.

  • Validate the concept with early usability research for potential broader applications.

Research

  • Conducted a prototype-driven study to observe user behaviors around recalling previous Alexa interactions.

  • Designed a wizard-of-oz prototype simulating content discovery and re-engagement flows.

    • Included saved content, recent interactions, and proactive recommendations.

    • Used placeholder content to match user expectations across diverse Alexa features like music and games.

  • Identified a strong preference for easily accessible, saved actions and contextually relevant prompts.

Ideation

  • Created an early prototype organizing content by relevance to user activity, balancing saved content and personalized recommendations.

  • Explored multimodal interaction opportunities to improve navigation across Alexa-enabled devices with touch and voice interfaces.

 

Key Learnings

  • Users highly value a simple way to recall and re-engage with their saved or recently accessed content.

  • Proactive content surfaced in familiar contexts is perceived as helpful rather than intrusive, especially for subscription-based or recurring interactions (e.g., daily Jeopardy questions).

  • Multimodal interactions (combining touch, voice, and visual cues) were particularly effective, suggesting further exploration for future integrations.

Note: The multimodal teams at Alexa expressed significant interest in leveraging these learnings to inform their broader strategies for proactive engagement and user retention.