UX & SYSTEM DESIGN
How might we increase customer engagement with Alexa by leveraging special occasions like birthdays to encourage communication with more contacts, thereby reducing user lapse and enhancing the overall Comms experience?
This feature significantly enhanced user engagement, with a 20% increase in Engagement level among those who received birthday reminders.
Role - End to end lead strategy designer ( individual project )
Client - Alexa Connections, Amazon
Collaborated with seven teams—Sound, Visual, VUI Designers, Platform, OOBE, Legal, and Privacy—to deliver a cohesive birthday reminder experience across Alexa devices, ensuring seamless integration and earning customer trust.
challenges and STRATEGY
Where do we start?
People celebrate a lot of things — festivals, anniversaries, weddings, graduations. But not all occasions are equal when you're designing at scale. I needed to figure out: which moments give us the best foundation to build on?
I developed a simple evaluation framework looking at three things: how easily can we collect the data, how often does the occasion recur, and how universally does it apply? Birthdays came out on top. Everyone has one. They happen every year. They're personal but not culturally exclusive. Unlike a festival or a wedding, you don't need context to know a birthday matters.
Earning trust before earning engagement
How might we ask for personal data in a way that feels helpful — not invasive?
People are protective of their relationships. If Alexa suddenly knows your mom's birthday, the first reaction shouldn't be "how does it know that?" — it should be "oh, that's nice."
Only surface people who matter to you — not your entire contact list
Give full control — turn notifications on, off, hide specific people, anytime
Be upfront — tell people exactly what data we're using and why
Feel like a thoughtful friend, not a tracking system
Making it feel like more than a notification
On social media, birthdays became performative. A wall post you forget you wrote. We wanted the opposite — something that makes you feel something when you send it.
solution
SENDER
RECIEVER
CELEBRATING BIRTHDAYS AT HOME
DISCOVER
SYSTEM MAPPING FOR DIFFERENT OCCASIONS
