AVS UX Design Overview

A successful Alexa integration makes it easy for a customer to interact with your product using natural voice control. The AVS UX Design guidelines outline requirements and recommendations to achieve a seamless Alexa experience.

Use the AVS UX Design guidelines as you design your customer’s product experience and follow all guidelines before submitting your product for review.

Setup and Authentication

The Setup and Authentication process teaches customers what Alexa is, how to use it, and allows them to connect the device to their Amazon account. This typically lives within the setup or first run experience on a partner device.

For information on using using the Alexa app for setup, as well as design guidance for setup flow, authentication, example screens, and example text and translations, see Setup and Authentication.

Attention System

When building a device, remember that using Alexa should feel conversational. This means that waking Alexa should be easy, interrupting Alexa should be supported, and the customer should easily be able to see and understand Alexa’s non-verbal states, like Listening and Thinking.

Implementing Notifications and Display Cards will affect how the Attention States are displayed. Remember to consider the requirements for those features as well.

For information on the attention system, including states and sounds, see Attention System. If you include Alexa Calling, Messaging, and Announcements (ACM) in your product, we also have additional attention system guidance for ACM.

Buttons

While Alexa is voice-forward, customers still need an easy, intuitive way to interact without using voice. You may provide hardware or on-screen buttons which allow customers to control your device and their interactions with Alexa. The Buttons page has requirements and recommendations.

Notifications

When implementing Notifications, you need to determine the best way to inform your customer that a Notification has arrived, and how to persistently remind the customer that unread notifications are available in their queue. For more on how to alert customers about new or queued Notifications, see Notifications.

Interrupts

Customers should always be able to stop an Alexa interaction or alert, or request something else while Alexa is responding. In order to keep these interactions smooth, your device must handle conflicting customer requests in a way that customers find simple and predictable. See the Interrupts page for guidance.

Screen-based (multimodal) displays

A multimodal device can give your customers additional visual and touch-based ways to interact with Alexa, which for some use cases might provide a richer, more delightful interaction. Guidelines and best practices are outlined in Multimodal Display Guide.

Logo and Brand

Consistent and correct use of Amazon Alexa brand assets in your user interface will protect product integrity and help customers instantly recognize references to Amazon Alexa, thereby allowing your app to be clearly understood. See AVS UX Logo and Brand Usage for more information.

Contact Us

We are excited to work with you on the commercial release of your product with Amazon Alexa. If you have any questions, concerns or comments related to these design guidelines, or are interested in obtaining the resources referenced in the design guidelines, please contact us.

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Last updated: Sep 05, 2023