Setup Made Easy

Products: Alexa Mobile & Echo Devices
Duration: 2017 – 2019
What I did: Task flow, wireframe, pattern/system design, competitor analysis, product strategy, prototype, and presentation.
Design Mentor: Lloyd Bagtas

Main objective
Setup is the most crucial experience to enable millions of customers using the Echo speakers and interacting with Alexa. In 2017, although setup was the biggest incentive for customers to download the Alexa app, more than half of customers were not able to set up their devices on their first try. For that reason, teams started to simplify and innovate on setup experiences to improve the overall completion rate.

My role
I was the lead designer responsible of the end to end setup experience on Alexa Mobile app which supports all 1P Echo speakers launched in 2018 and 2019. I established a new setup framework by partnering across 7+ Alexa domains to introduce 3 new setup flows (Wi-fi Simple Setup, Bluetooth Setup, and Auto Discovery Setup) under Frustration Free Setup Program.

Outcomes/metrics

Launched total of 12+ 1P Echo speaker devices in 2018 and 2019.
- 6 out of12+ devices were first generation audio configurable devices from Echo family.
Increased Setup Completion Rate by +32% (from 47% to 79%).
Increased overall Alexa App Rating by +213% (from 2017 to 2020).

What’s next
To bias for speed and deliverables for team goals to successfully expand the Echo speakers family by 3x and redesign end to end Alexa app and setup experiences; we left a lot of paper-cuts and tech debt in the development process. Before moving on to my next role, I lead and facilitated design workshops to help teams define and explore realistic team goals for 2020.

This is where we started…

In 2017, setup rate was only 47% with Manual Setup.

Manual setup is a legacy setup method which required customers to manually connect device and phone through a temporary Wifi in order to complete network setup and other onboarding steps on the Alexa Mobile App (see image below for reference).

In 2018, I partnered with tech and product teams and launched Wi-fi Simple Setup & Bluetooth setup under Frustration Free Program.

The Frustration Free Setup Program is an Amazon long-term goal to take away the headache of setting up your smart home (see press articles about the launch from The Verge & CNET).

Wi-fi Simple Setup allows customers to set up devices as easy as plugging them into the wall by using Amazon’s Wi-Fi Locker to store your Wi-Fi credentials and share them with compatible smart home devices nearby.

*This experience required customers to have another device already been set up in the proximity.

Bluetooth Setup allows customers to connect device to Alexa app through bluetooth to set up network and complete onboarding steps.

*This experience is similar to the industry standard of bluetooth pairing.

Although setup rate increased by +17% after these experiences were launched, teams noticed customers were still frustrated… but, why?

Based on metrics, although Wi-fi Simple Setup has higher success rate, it is only available to a fraction of customers due to its exclusivity to return customers only. While Bluetooth setup is the most accessible experience, almost half of customers still struggle to set up their device.

Therefore, teams did an end to end audit of Bluetooth flow and identified nearly half of customers drop out of the experience due to pain points in the beginning of flow (see below for callouts on specific pain points). By improving the Bluetooth experience, we can prevent customers falling back to the cumbersome Manual Setup and likely increase more on customer’s success possibility.

In 2019, teams introduced Auto Discovery.

Auto discovery is a new setup experience not only helps customers cut through 4+ most painful steps in the beginning of the Bluetooth setup, but also allows the app to proactively ingress customers to any setup step or flow based on signals sent by nearby devices.

It is **NOT** just a pop-up.

This new affordance not only solve pain points for Bluetooth setup, it also **consolidated 7+ setup flows** across Alexa Mobile App.

I established partnership with 5+ domains teams to customize and repurpose this new proposed pattern to address and improve 7+ other setup flows’ pain points. See below for some examples.

Wi-Fi Simple Setup – Improve setup transparency to prevent customers interrupting devices setup process and running into error cases.

QR Code or other setup– Customers often are not aware that some device require to go through certain setup process and end up in the wrong setup flow. Therefore, with this new affordance, the app can directly take customers to the exact step/flow to begin their setup correctly.

Multiple devices setup– When devices are sold in bundle, it can guide customers to set up devices in the right order to prevent error cases.

6 out of12+ devices launched in 2018 & 2019 were first generation audio configurable devices from Echo family.

Challenges with these devices–

Devices included first subwoofer, receiver, and amplifier in Echo Family
First Echo device with no speaker and/or microphone
First speaker bundle products in Echo Family

Unlike other Echo speaker devices which are considered setup complete after connecting to Wifi, these audio configurable devices required to be paired or connected with another speakers during setup flow for them to be considered ‘fully setup and functional.’

For example – Below shows a stereo pairing experience during an Echo Sub setup (a subwoofer requires to be paired with another Echo Smart Speaker to be functional).

See press articles about the devices launch events in 2018 & 2019.

As of 2020, Setup completion rate increased by +32% (from 47% to 79%).

Average app rating increased by +213% (setup is one of the most used features within the Alexa app).

Before moving on to my next role, I lead and facilitated a week long design workshop to help teams define realistic team goals for 2020.

The Alexa app and devices teams took on ambitious goals from 2017–2019 which 1) expanded Echo speaker family by 3x, 2) launched 3 new setup flows, and 3) redesigned end to end Alexa mobile app experiences.

To move fast, teams created a lot of paper-cuts and inconsistency during experiences and development process. By capturing pain points and opportunities through competitor analysis and user journey exercises, team decided to focus on creating consistent setup design system to reduce future implementation frictions and create a more scalable unified setup experiences in 2020. Setup team later also expanded from team of 1 designer to a team of 3+ designers.