Amazon UX Design Internship 2021
My experience designing a kid-friendly search experience for the Amazon Kids app on Fire TV.
Overview
Project context
Amazon UX Design Internship - Summer 2021
Timeframe: 3 months (June - September 2021)
Team: Tejus Krishnan
Mentor: Ginger Fang
Supervisors: Xavier Dayanandh, Lorian Taylor, Jason Andalcio
Tools used: Figma, Quip, Confluence
Project deliverables
Research audit
Customer journey map
User flows
Mockups
Interactive prototype
My role
UI/UX Design
Interactions & Visuals
Project Background
The Amazon Kids team manages the entire ecosystem of kid-friendly content across Amazon devices. The Fire TV is Amazon’s smart TV device. Its default interface is known as the general-audience (GA) or “adult” mode, while child profiles will view the Amazon Kids app.
General Audience
Amazon Kids
Search Today
At the time I was assigned the project, the Amazon Kids app’s Search feature was merely an onscreen text keyboard. In terms of the Nielsen/Norman UI design heuristics, it failed in the following areas:
Recognition vs. recall
Flexibility and efficiency of use
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The Search feature on the Amazon Kids Fire TV app is rudimentary and difficult for kids to use. It consists of merely a text-based keyboard that one must operate using a TV remote.
How can we redesign the search experience to make it more kid-friendly?
Design process
This project was done over 3 months, starting from research and ideation and evolving into countless rounds of design.
Product Research
Competitive analysis
Netflix Kids
Character carousel - promotes recognition over recall
Search results are responsive and visual
Disney Plus Kids
Content is well-categorized into collections
Reduced need for text entry
YouTube Kids
Design kept completely separate from adult CX
Clear delineation between age groups
Fire Tv (GA)
Search within all streaming apps from homepage
Uses voice search
Notes: Netflix
Notes: Disney Plus
Notes: YouTube Kids
Notes: Fire TV (GA)
Usability literature review
Who is my user?
Based on the above research takeaways, I knew I wanted my UI redesign to prioritize visuals and bookmarks, and reduce the amount of text the user has to engage with. From this information, it became clear that the type of child who would be best-served by such a UI overhaul on search is an early reader who still thinks in images. This would place my target age range at 5 to 7 years old.
Ideation & Early Designs
Customer journey map
Design Questions
“Crazy 8” Designs
How might we reduce text entry?
How might we introduce child-friendly cues?
How might we integrate table-stakes features?
User Flows
HMW #1: ELIMINATING TEXT ENTRY
Search by watch history
Search using collections
Search using characters
Search suggestions
HMW #2: KID-FRIENDLY SEARCH CUES
Cue-based search shortcuts
Search by dialogue excerpts
Search by imagery
HMW #3: TABLE-STAKES FEATURES
Search suggestions
Integrating content from third-party apps
Fire TV remote buttons as keyboard shortcuts
Prototyping
Product Features
“More Like” - search for titles similar to those in your watch history.
Characters & Themes - search for titles organized by IP, represented by a familiar character or image (ex: Disney Princesses)
Images - search for titles based on prominent imagery (ex: “forests”)
Colors - similar to the above, but based on prominent colors (ex: red for Spider-Man, Clifford the Big Red Dog, etc.)
Dialogue - search by familiar lines of dialogue, such as catchphrases.
Medium-Fidelity Prototypes
Layout 1 - inspired by Netflix. The new search tools would act as additional filters, like an advanced search to augment traditional text search. Text search would come with both suggestions and live search results.
Layout 1 in action. Users can select multiple titles for which they want similar results, similar to online shopping. The feedback I received was that the layout is too cluttered and that the cognitive load needed to be reduced.
Layout 2, which makes each search path separate rather than treating the new ones as mere filters. This looks visually simpler, but feedback suggested I make all possible search paths readily visible.
Layout 3, which keeps all search paths on the same level of the hierarchy, but makes them all visible on top. This went onto become the foundation for the final design.
High-fidelity Prototypes + Cognitive Walkthrough
To validate the design, we arranged cognitive walkthrough session with members of the usability research team. I integrated the following feedback:
Renamed “More Like” to “Because You Watched”
Scrapped the multi-select mechanism on Because You Watched
Moved the Characters & Themes search mode to the top
Removed Images and Dialogue as search parameters
Moved text-based search to the end
Before (Medium-Fidelity)
After (High-Fidelity)
Final Design
The final user interface for the redesigned search experience offers four paths to searching for titles:
Characters & Themes
Because You Watched
Colors
Improved text search
This is Michael.
Michael is a 7-year old who watches a lot of TV, and loves superheroes in particular. He is an early reader who still thinks in images, and usually needs his mom or dad to help him type out what he’s looking to watch on the Amazon Kids app.
Characters & Themes
Michael wants to see more of his favorite superheroes in action. Instead of typing it into a search box, he can now just find a readymade collection for it right here. Characters & Themes sorts content into collections based on names and faces that kids will instantly recognize.
Because You Watched
Michael just finished all of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. He loved the show and wants to see more like it. Now he can do just that, by clicking Because You Watched and finding shows similar to it. This feature lets kids find content recommended to them based on their watch history.
Colors
Michael saw his friend watching a really cool cartoon where the hero was wearing a red costume, but he can’t remember what it was. He looks for titles under the color “Red” and realizes his friend was watching Iron Man! The Colors feature sorts content by theme color, and is perfect for kids with a great visual memory.
Improved Text Search
Michael knows he wants to watch an Arthur cartoon, but can’t find it on the homepage. He goes over to the search box and types in “A”, and is overjoyed to find Arthur immediately pop up. The revamped text search comes with a much-improved interface for live search suggestions.
Characters & Themes
Content found under the “Princesses” category for Characters & Themes.
Content found under the “Heroes” category for Characters & Themes.
Because You Watched
Titles recommended because you watched Frozen.
Colors
Content tagged as “Red”.
Text Search (Updated)
Before
After
Is the Design kid-friendly?
Yes!
Highly visual and largely based on suggestions
Ofers kids multiple paths to find new content to watch
Promotes recognition over recall
Both more efficient (by reducing clicks-to-productivity) and flexible (by providing a multimodal and multi-pronged approach to search).
Next Steps & Reflection
Next Steps
If I were to continue this project, there are several areas I feel I could explore further, such as…
Usability testing
Accessibility considerations
Integrating the content catalog
Integrating content from third-party apps
Voice search
What did I learn?
Adapting to different managerial styles
Navigating ambiguity
Integrating feedback
Being part of a large team
Amazon’s culture of leadership
Iterating on an established product
Designing for a smart TV interface
