Alexa Auto Design Guidelines

About this guide.

This guide is a one-stop destination for designing in-vehicle Alexa experiences. It includes principles, voice, visual, user interface (UI) patterns, and multimodal best practices. These guidelines come from best practices Amazon has adopted while taking our customer obsessed approach to product development. Some guidelines are required to provide a consistent experience with Alexa. However, we openly share other recommended guidelines with values partners to help them create world class automotive experiences.

Who is this guide for?

This guide is for anyone creating an Alexa Built-in automotive experience. This includes original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), tier 1 automotive suppliers, aftermarket accessory manufacturers, and others.

Why use this guide?

At Amazon, we strive to be the most customer obsessed company on Earth. Creating an engaging, high-quality interaction with Alexa in the vehicle is absolutely critical. Use this guide to provide your customers with a consistent and high-quality experience and as a checklist to aid passing the Amazon certification process prior to any product launch.

What is not included in this guide?

These guidelines only apply to the Center Stack (see diagram below) designs and other aftermarket devices that provide Alexa Built-in experiences within the vehicle.

Common terms

Vehicle terminology

How to use this guide

This guide has four key sections:

  1. Getting started: Introduces you to this guide and Alexa in the vehicle.
  2. Foundation: Covers guidelines that impact throughout the Alexa experience such as visual design, invoking Alexa, UI text guidelines, and writing for voice.
  3. HMI Features: Covers guidelines specific to features, domains, and flows.
  4. Resources: Provides tools such as icons, sounds, and fonts to use in the implementation process. This section also covers terminology and changes made to the this guide.


As you dive into these sections you will notice some items labeled Required or Recommended. These terms mean the following:

  • Required: Must-haves for all Alexa Auto implementations. The required items in this guide must be adhered to in order to pass certification.

  • Recommended: Suggestions for all Alexa Auto implementations and significantly improve the customer experience.

To learn more about developer tools to for integrating Alexa into vehicles, visit Alexa for Vehicles.


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Last updated: Nov 25, 2023