Improving Feature Discovery

At Amazon Alexa, I was the Product Designer helping to improve internal tooling, working with about a dozen engineers. The core tool, Odyssey, was designed and built by back-end engineers, so while very capable, at times it confounded the non-technical audience.

Improving Feature Discovery

At Amazon Alexa, I was the Product Designer helping to improve internal tooling, working with about a dozen engineers. The core tool, Odyssey, was designed and built by back-end engineers, so while very capable, at times it confounded the non-technical audience.

Improving Feature Discovery

At Amazon Alexa, I was the Product Designer helping to improve internal tooling, working with about a dozen engineers. The core tool, Odyssey, was designed and built by back-end engineers, so while very capable, at times it confounded the non-technical audience.

Improving Feature Discovery

At Amazon Alexa, I was the Product Designer helping to improve internal tooling, working with about a dozen engineers. The core tool, Odyssey, was designed and built by back-end engineers, so while very capable, at times it confounded the non-technical audience.

The Goal

Feature Engagment = Downstream Impact

A majority of Alexa devices owners tended to use the same features over and over again: music, timers, weather, that’s pretty much it. The metrics showed that if we could get customers to use more features, it meant more conversion for other services like Shopping, Prime, Audible, etc. This is known at Amazon as Downstream Impact, an important KPI.

The Goal

Feature Engagment = Downstream Impact

A majority of Alexa devices owners tended to use the same features over and over again: music, timers, weather, that’s pretty much it. The metrics showed that if we could get customers to use more features, it meant more conversion for other services like Shopping, Prime, Audible, etc. This is known at Amazon as Downstream Impact, an important KPI.

The Goal

Feature Engagment = Downstream Impact

A majority of Alexa devices owners tended to use the same features over and over again: music, timers, weather, that’s pretty much it. The metrics showed that if we could get customers to use more features, it meant more conversion for other services like Shopping, Prime, Audible, etc. This is known at Amazon as Downstream Impact, an important KPI.

The Goal

Feature Engagment = Downstream Impact

A majority of Alexa devices owners tended to use the same features over and over again: music, timers, weather, that’s pretty much it. The metrics showed that if we could get customers to use more features, it meant more conversion for other services like Shopping, Prime, Audible, etc. This is known at Amazon as Downstream Impact, an important KPI.

Product Fit

Discovery Moments

Odyssey enabled Alexa feature teams and marketing to publish "discovery moments," a gentle nudge towards a feature or awareness for events like Prime Day. The most common discovery moment was content appended to a voice response. For example, "Alexa, play music" might trigger the response "Got it, playing music... Make waking up more fun. Try saying, 'Wake me up to music.'" Discovery moments could be a single delivery or a series, otherwise known as campaigns. Odyssey had many capabilities, many of which unperceived, hidden by how overwhelmingly technical the product was. The engineers who designed it put their best foot forward, describing the technical nuances of each feature within the UI, but the benefits were mostly lost.

Product Fit

Discovery Moments

Odyssey enabled Alexa feature teams and marketing to publish "discovery moments," a gentle nudge towards a feature or awareness for events like Prime Day. The most common discovery moment was content appended to a voice response. For example, "Alexa, play music" might trigger the response "Got it, playing music... Make waking up more fun. Try saying, 'Wake me up to music.'" Discovery moments could be a single delivery or a series, otherwise known as campaigns. Odyssey had many capabilities, many of which unperceived, hidden by how overwhelmingly technical the product was. The engineers who designed it put their best foot forward, describing the technical nuances of each feature within the UI, but the benefits were mostly lost.

Product Fit

Discovery Moments

Odyssey enabled Alexa feature teams and marketing to publish "discovery moments," a gentle nudge towards a feature or awareness for events like Prime Day. The most common discovery moment was content appended to a voice response. For example, "Alexa, play music" might trigger the response "Got it, playing music... Make waking up more fun. Try saying, 'Wake me up to music.'" Discovery moments could be a single delivery or a series, otherwise known as campaigns. Odyssey had many capabilities, many of which unperceived, hidden by how overwhelmingly technical the product was. The engineers who designed it put their best foot forward, describing the technical nuances of each feature within the UI, but the benefits were mostly lost.

Product Fit

Discovery Moments

Odyssey enabled Alexa feature teams and marketing to publish "discovery moments," a gentle nudge towards a feature or awareness for events like Prime Day. The most common discovery moment was content appended to a voice response. For example, "Alexa, play music" might trigger the response "Got it, playing music... Make waking up more fun. Try saying, 'Wake me up to music.'" Discovery moments could be a single delivery or a series, otherwise known as campaigns. Odyssey had many capabilities, many of which unperceived, hidden by how overwhelmingly technical the product was. The engineers who designed it put their best foot forward, describing the technical nuances of each feature within the UI, but the benefits were mostly lost.

Approach

Understanding the Pain Points

I ran a design sprint with users ranging from daily active to once a month, advanced to beginner. I brought the engineering team along to hear the feedback directly. As we walked through campaign creation, I had the participants explain their workflow, end goal, and how they thought Odyssey worked. This revealed a general misunderstanding of some of the UI. As the engineers clarified terms and features, light bulbs went off as participants began to understand. With valuable insights uncovered, we saw a clear path to improvement. The whole activity took about an hour and a half.

Approach

Understanding the Pain Points

I ran a design sprint with users ranging from daily active to once a month, advanced to beginner. I brought the engineering team along to hear the feedback directly. As we walked through campaign creation, I had the participants explain their workflow, end goal, and how they thought Odyssey worked. This revealed a general misunderstanding of some of the UI. As the engineers clarified terms and features, light bulbs went off as participants began to understand. With valuable insights uncovered, we saw a clear path to improvement. The whole activity took about an hour and a half.

Approach

Understanding the Pain Points

I ran a design sprint with users ranging from daily active to once a month, advanced to beginner. I brought the engineering team along to hear the feedback directly. As we walked through campaign creation, I had the participants explain their workflow, end goal, and how they thought Odyssey worked. This revealed a general misunderstanding of some of the UI. As the engineers clarified terms and features, light bulbs went off as participants began to understand. With valuable insights uncovered, we saw a clear path to improvement. The whole activity took about an hour and a half.

Approach

Understanding the Pain Points

I ran a design sprint with users ranging from daily active to once a month, advanced to beginner. I brought the engineering team along to hear the feedback directly. As we walked through campaign creation, I had the participants explain their workflow, end goal, and how they thought Odyssey worked. This revealed a general misunderstanding of some of the UI. As the engineers clarified terms and features, light bulbs went off as participants began to understand. With valuable insights uncovered, we saw a clear path to improvement. The whole activity took about an hour and a half.

Design Process

Simplifying Authoring

Every field and dropdown in the UI was needed, so cutting options to simplify would break live campaigns. Also, I couldn't reshuffle the layout, forcing advanced users to relearn it. So rather than revamping the original creation path entirely, I decided to put a simplified version alongside it as an easier means to the same end. For the CIF channel (aka "by the way, have you heard of {feature name}?"), this alternate was called Basic CIF, which was stripped of all optional fields. An unexpected benefit of this approach: new authors could use this path as training wheels.

Design Process

Simplifying Authoring

Every field and dropdown in the UI was needed, so cutting options to simplify would break live campaigns. Also, I couldn't reshuffle the layout, forcing advanced users to relearn it. So rather than revamping the original creation path entirely, I decided to put a simplified version alongside it as an easier means to the same end. For the CIF channel (aka "by the way, have you heard of {feature name}?"), this alternate was called Basic CIF, which was stripped of all optional fields. An unexpected benefit of this approach: new authors could use this path as training wheels.

Design Process

Simplifying Authoring

Every field and dropdown in the UI was needed, so cutting options to simplify would break live campaigns. Also, I couldn't reshuffle the layout, forcing advanced users to relearn it. So rather than revamping the original creation path entirely, I decided to put a simplified version alongside it as an easier means to the same end. For the CIF channel (aka "by the way, have you heard of {feature name}?"), this alternate was called Basic CIF, which was stripped of all optional fields. An unexpected benefit of this approach: new authors could use this path as training wheels.

Design Process

Simplifying Authoring

Every field and dropdown in the UI was needed, so cutting options to simplify would break live campaigns. Also, I couldn't reshuffle the layout, forcing advanced users to relearn it. So rather than revamping the original creation path entirely, I decided to put a simplified version alongside it as an easier means to the same end. For the CIF channel (aka "by the way, have you heard of {feature name}?"), this alternate was called Basic CIF, which was stripped of all optional fields. An unexpected benefit of this approach: new authors could use this path as training wheels.

Advanced Authoring

For advanced authoring, I was limited by what I could touch, so as not to break existing experiences. Even so, I used a handful of design tactics to melt away confusion across the journey. I used chunking to make the number of fields seem less overwhelming. I suggested autosave, allowing users to walk away at any time. I also audited copy to remove engineer-y terms and make the language more consistent.

Choose Campaign Type

Choose Campaign Type

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Select User Target

Select User Target

Author the Experience

Author the Experience

Choose Campaign Type

Choose Campaign Type

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Select User Target

Select User Target

Author the Experience

Author the Experience

Choose Campaign Type

Choose Campaign Type

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Select User Target

Select User Target

Author the Experience

Author the Experience

Choose Campaign Type

Choose Campaign Type

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Configure Triggering Mechanism

Select User Target

Select User Target

Author the Experience

Author the Experience

Process Continued

Further Improvements

Automating

The workflow UI was very form-field intensive. Instead of showing a sea of empty fields each time a campaign was created, pre-loading common inputs delivered meaningful time savings.

Templates

Marketers struggled with too many style options. Instead of making them configure everything manually, I defined a set of simple templates with pre-loaded content tailored to common goals.

Copy Audit

Copy throughout the tool was filled with developer-speak. I replaced these with plain language and clear questions, so marketers quickly understood what the tool does and what results to expect.

Process Continued

Further Improvements

Automating

The workflow UI was very form-field intensive. Instead of showing a sea of empty fields each time a campaign was created, pre-loading common inputs delivered meaningful time savings.

Templates

Marketers struggled with too many style options. Instead of making them configure everything manually, I defined a set of simple templates with pre-loaded content tailored to common goals.

Copy Audit

Copy throughout the tool was filled with developer-speak. I replaced these with plain language and clear questions, so marketers quickly understood what the tool does and what results to expect.

Process Continued

Further Improvements

Automating

The workflow UI was very form-field intensive. Instead of showing a sea of empty fields each time a campaign was created, pre-loading common inputs delivered meaningful time savings.

Templates

Marketers struggled with too many style options. Instead of making them configure everything manually, I defined a set of simple templates with pre-loaded content tailored to common goals.

Copy Audit

Copy throughout the tool was filled with developer-speak. I replaced these with plain language and clear questions, so marketers quickly understood what the tool does and what results to expect.

Process Continued

Further Improvements

Automating

The workflow UI was very form-field intensive. Instead of showing a sea of empty fields each time a campaign was created, pre-loading common inputs delivered meaningful time savings.

Templates

Marketers struggled with too many style options. Instead of making them configure everything manually, I defined a set of simple templates with pre-loaded content tailored to common goals.

Copy Audit

Copy throughout the tool was filled with developer-speak. I replaced these with plain language and clear questions, so marketers quickly understood what the tool does and what results to expect.

Impact

These internal tools at Amazon that drove a 160% increase in global campaigns, 208% YoY growth, and cut campaign creation time from months to as little as 2 weeks.

Impact

These internal tools at Amazon that drove a 160% increase in global campaigns, 208% YoY growth, and cut campaign creation time from months to as little as 2 weeks.

Impact

These internal tools at Amazon that drove a 160% increase in global campaigns, 208% YoY growth, and cut campaign creation time from months to as little as 2 weeks.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved. All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved. All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved. All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved. All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.