Alexa Design System

Project Summary

Amazon's Devices Design Group is a cross-functional team collaborating on an array of devices including the Echo Show line, Fire TV, Fire Tablets, and more. In research, we saw that customers were unable to recognize that these devices are related, or even coming from the same company. What's more, research showed the lack of standardized interaction patterns on our devices left customers confused and frustrated when using them. To provide customers with a more connected family of devices and a more predictable experience, we created a design system for all Alexa-enabled devices.

The Alexa Design System is a set of components, tokens, patterns, frameworks, and guidelines that can be used by experience makers to craft experiences that respond across all our devices. When inventing for the design system, our job as designers was to ensure that we were providing all the tools required to build best-in-class experiences for all Alexa-enabled devices. In this role, my previous team at Amazon, I worked with fellow designers, researchers, and developers over a year to overhaul our design system and bring our experience makers version two of the design system for Alexa.

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Results‍

The result of this new design system has been an improved set of tokens, several new components and patterns, and a new internal human interface guidelines site. Ultimately these improved mechanisms and deliverables have led to increased adoption of the design system by partner teams within Amazon and a more cohesive experience for end-customers that use Alexa-enabled devices such as the Echo Show series and Fire TV. Want to know more about this role? Reach out!