A multi-device experience to enhance how Alexa users interact with Hunches by making notifications more personalized and less intrusive, while increasing transparency around the impact of user feedback to encourage continued engagement.
Timeline & Status
4 Months, Jan 2024 - May 2024
Team
7 Designers
1 Project lead
Platform
Mobile, Amazon Echo Show
My Role
Team lead
Contribution
Feature Scoping
Research
Interaction Design
Prototyping
User Flows
Overview
Alexa's Hunches feature proactively suggests or takes actions based on users' habits in their smart homes. However, users reported confusion and frustration due to unexpected or incorrect actions taken by Hunches, leading to a lack of trust and engagement with the feature.
I led the end-to-end design of a multi-device experience to improve feedback for Hunches, crafting personalized notifications and feedback flows across the Alexa app and Echo Show.
As the Lead UX Designer on the team, I designed and prototyped Alexa’s Hunches feedback experience across multiple devices, establishing 4 key user flows to boost adoption of personalized proactive actions. I also led a team of 7 designers, facilitating co-design and ideation workshops to uncover user challenges and deliver high-fidelity mockups.
Our focus was on the proactive actions taken by the Amazon Alexa on home automation devices and the feedback loop that follows it.
Problem context
Hunches allows Alexa to proactively suggest or take actions based on your usage patterns and habits in your smart home.
A Reddit User
r/tradfri
Bruh, Alexa be turning on the light multiple times throughout the night while I'm sleeping 😭 How do I turn off the hunchhhh
37
“
I have an electronic ghost. The culprit in this case is hunches! To turn this feature off in the Alexa app go to More → Settings → Hunches
SmartThings
A Reddit User
r/alexa
Hunches need some work
42
Recently Alexa started turning off my Outside driveway light at 1:00am. I still think that this is a good feature, but i have now had to turn off the hunches completely.
A Reddit User
r/tradfri
FYI: Beware of Alexa Hunches, just a heads up for people
10
A few days ago, some of my lights and outlets started randomly turning off and I had no idea why. There really should be a notification in the alexa app when hunch activates, especially for the 1st time.
“
I’ve got some smart sockets which are been triggering by themselves having no routine in place for this to happen!!
Amazon UK Forum
But Hunches made a LOT of mistakes
Users seemed to be happy with Alexa overall, but had issues with wrong hunch predictions, and confusion about what happened and why.
Hunches are often wrong and feedback could help Alexa improve its future actions.
More user feedback
Fewer incorrect actions
Improved user trust
How might we make it easier for users of Alexa's Hunches to provide feedback in order to improve the accuracy and experience of Hunches
Project scope
Solution Overview
Increasing user awareness of Hunch actions, enabling them to provide accurate feedback and improve future Hunch predictions.
Device-level notifications
Echo Show notification widget
Dynamic Alexa app widget
Showing the impact of feedback over time
We found that most users were not even aware of hunches. These phantom actions confused them!
A diary study with 2 friends who used Alexa hunches
Digital ethnography through online forums like Reddit
User interviews with 4 Alexa users with elaborate home automation
A co-design workshop with 4 other Alexa users
Before focusing on feedback mechanisms, we wanted to know the user perception of hunches.
Research
In the current Alexa app, hunch notifications are hidden 4 levels deep. An irritated user would not bother looking.
Within a couple of weeks we found three reasons why users rarely provide feedback
Lack of awareness
Users are not even aware that a proactive action has taken place
Unexpected actions
The details of proactive actions are hard to find as it is deeply hidden within the Alexa app
Unclear Value of Feedback
Users are less likely to give feedback over time as they are not sure if Alexa even listens to their feedback
How can users give feedback when they aren't even aware a hunch action took place?
I led a co-design workshop with 4 Alexa users. I then got together with the team, to brainstorm and sketch out concepts identified in the workshop.
Ideation
We prototyped multiple iterations of each concept and got user feedback for each
Prototypes and feedback
Iteration 1
"Hunches" section at the bottom navigation bar to inform users.
Idea scrapped
Why?
It didn't make sense to change the entire navigation of the app just for hunches.
Iteration 2
Hunches as a tab in the home screen, avoiding significant changes to the app.
Small changes needed
Why?
Tab could get lost while scrolling numerous tabs.
Final iteration
Device level tab showing the device affected by hunches.
Iteration 1
A notification dialogue box leveraging the always on display of the Echo Show device.
Idea scrapped
Why?
Too intrusive, and difficult to stack multiple notifications.
Iteration 2
Hunch notifications stacked on a sidebar. Easy to view action and give feedback.
Small changes needed
Why?
Hunches are a small Alexa functionality and do not require a dedicated sidebar.
Kitchen light turned off at 9PM. Did Alexa do this right?
Iteration 1
The echo device vocally announces hunch actions and asks for feedback for each action.
Idea scrapped
Why?
Users found this too intrusive and voice interactions too tedious especially for multiple hunch actions.
Final solution
A multi-device experience that allows users to personalize Hunch notifications and enables them to give feedback in a non-intrusive way.
Device-level notifications
dynamic widgets
Some devices are more important to the user than others. For example, door locks or lights in the baby room. This feature allows users to personalize notification frequency and modality for each device
Dynamic widgets leveraging the always-on display on the Amazon Echo Show and an improvement over the current mobile widget.
Current design
(All devices are treated equal)
Redesign
(Allows the user to create custom alerts at a device-level)
Pain points addressed:
User not aware of Hunch action
Not enough context given about Hunch action
Pain points addressed:
User not aware of Hunch action
Not enough context given about Hunch action
Clicking on the widget shows all hunch actions, context around the action and feedback
Current mobile widget
(to invoke Alexa)
Re-designed widgets
Deliver updates on the user's home screen without intrusion.
IMPACT OF FEEDBACK OVER TIME
A feature that shows the user how Alexa's hunch model has improved its predictions over time as a result of continuous feedback.
Pain points addressed:
Users are not sure if giving feedback is useful
This shows how Alexa’s hunch model has changed its predictions over time as a result of continuous user feedback
I created a feature proposal and extensive documentation ready for handoff
Next Steps
Further explore incorporating voice as a medium to interact with Alexa and provide feedback
Provide a less disjointed experience when user switches between modalities while interacting with Alexa. For example, when the user interacts with Alexa via voice but feedback is presented on the echo device
Provide a more seamless experience between devices to provide feedback. For example, giving feedback through the mobile app and then the echo device as the user moves through their house
Conclusion and Learnings
I would have started by being a user myself and auditing the current experience including the Alexa app and the hunch feature. It would have saved a lot of time and would have prevented wrong assumptions about the experience.
Due to the shorter timespan, we ran out of time to test our concepts on the users. If I had more time, I would have performed multiple rounds of user testing and iterations.
I would have also explored more of the vocal interaction aspect of the experience rather than simply the echo and mobile experience.
What would I have done differently?
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© 2025 Rohan Pinto