Audible Chapter Names on Multi-Modal Surfaces
Role
Lead GUI designer
Responsibility
Led Audible Chapter list view designs on multi-modal devices
Collaboration
Lead VUI designer
Audible UX research
Domain expert - Amazon devices UX team
Engineer leads
Product owner
OVERVIEW
The availability of an additional table of contents metadata makes new experiences on Alexa possible. The purpose of this project is to use the new table of contents and chapter-hierarchy metadata to make it easier for customers both, through VUI and GUI, to get to the chapter they want. Included in the VUI support is a fix for the "off by 1 chapter" problem that has been a lingering pain point for AVE customers.
BUSINESS THESIS
We know that people on Alexa make as many rewind/forward requests as they do chapter forward/back requests. And of the chapter requests over 2/3rds are to a specific chapter, and most are for a relative chapter (previous/next). Fixing this VUI problem is going to reduce pain for customers on Alexa, and adding the GUI will bring the same coherent experience across all key surfaces. Near-term, for children's collections of books, having a GUI for accessing a specific story will also help until we support requesting a story from a collection by voice.
HYPOTHESIS
Broken experiences in small ways add up to people not having confidence in our service overall. If we address the smaller issues, we will make more people who experience Audible for the first time on Alexa stick around and become members, use our app.
USE CASES
An Alexa and Audible member want to listen to a specific part of a book. He asks to bring up the chapter list, scrolls through, and says which chapter to go to, all using his voice.
An Alexa listener wants to get her bearings and see where in the book she is. On her multimodal Alexa device, she asks to see the chapter list, sees her current chapter, the names of the previous two chapters, and thinks, 'oh yeah, they're in France" and listens in again, knowing exactly where she is in the story.
PROBLEM STATEMENTS
"As an Alexa listener, I find it frustrating when I say to jump to a specific chapter and it doesn't seem to understand me. It makes me not want to use Alexa. I want it to understand me better."
"As an Audible listener on Alexa, I sometimes forget where I am, and need to get my bearings. Seeing the chapter list helps me get a visual recap of the story."
"As an Alexa listener, my kids like listening to stories, but the collection I got for them is hard to navigate. I'd like to be able to open my phone and see the index of chapters and pick the story for them."
GUI UX REQUIREMENTS
GUI representation of multi-level chapter hierarchy with real chapter names on multi-modal devices (Echo Spot, 2nd Gen Show, Fire HD 8 Tablet & 1st Gen Show) and Alexa Companion App.
