The user interviews offer direct insight about how people interact with the device and shows how individuals find the device useful. But the interviews only show a one-sided perspective. It would have been nice if there was a perspective form people who don't see much usefulness in the device. The problems sections is very brief and not thorough. There are far more issues with the device than the three listed, and even those three could have been expanded significantly. The main issue that should have been addressed is the range of capabilities and limitations of the device. Other issues that could have been addressed include performance, durability, design, lack of desirable settings, and control interface. Overall, the report feels very short and not detailed enough. Other questions to consider are what is the age range of users, how frequently people use the device, where do people store the device, do users with disabilities benefit from the Alexa and how? Since this was a hardware product, it was essential to also have some description about the hardware itself and how people interact with the hardware - such as its level of portability, length of cable, lifetime of battery (if any), buttons and functions of those buttons, texture of the material, etc. The author could have also looked at the thousands of reviews on Amazon.com and seen what are the main positive comments people have about the device and the main negative comments.

return to top of page

Light on the analysis, but generally good points. User interviews were helpful, and better illustrated features of the device. However, I think it would've been better if the interviews supported the problems you found. As is - the problems seems to all be from your own experience. This is fine, but would be stronger if you had other users back you up. A video of alexa being used could also be helpful in both illustrating functionality, and also problems.

return to top of page

I love your pictures tearing down the product and explaining the workflow. They do a good job clarifying its function. And good job including the SNL ski to explain the wake word problem, that offers readers more options to understand the issue. I also really like the two personal interviews and quoting what the user exactly said. That helps personify your product and makes it easier for the reader (me) to relate to the experience.

While you do a great job explaining the product experience in detail and contextualizing it, your improvements aren't very tangible or detailed. You were supposed to propose preliminary design solutions to the problems that you stated, so spending more time to think about the solution would help.

Your secondary research is very brief and you mostly just explained what Amazon is and its variations. Your analysis would have benefitted from more research about its intended user group and the desired experience.

return to top of page

The analysis covers some major aspects of the overall requirement well. However, since the assignment requires us to focus on human use analysis, instead of having just user reviews on the page, it could have included the user journey to describe the use of the device.

The other suggestion that I have is regarding the redesign aspect of the analysis. Although, the problems were correctly identified by the author, the solutions could have been more descriptive to appeal to the reader. At the moment, they just convey what needs to be done, it could also include the part of how it could be done.

return to top of page

The website is designed ok, except for the fact that the text is not bounded, but fills the entire page, making it less easy to read on wide-screen display when maximized. The introduction is well written and the accompanying image is aptly placed to give the reader an idea of what Amazon Echo is. However, the labels on the image are nearly impossible to read. The image could have been made clickable so that a larger version of it shows up where the labels can be read.

return to top of page

Website is fine, though more consistency would be good. Bold body text is hard to read, and there are many inconsistencies with font and layout.

return to top of page

I like how to background color matches the blue of Alexa.

Since the prompt was to choose "two most critical aspects that are in need of improvement", I wasn't sure which 2 of your 3 problems were the most important. You can clarify that order by numbering it or color coding it and explaining. The problem section can also use some pictures to better understand what you're talking about.

-minor typo in intro of "do-to"

-in problems section, there are weird spacing issues and decoration with the text (spotify)

return to top of page

The website looks wonderful! It has a nice color theme to it. It looks very professional and well developed. It has the necessary features to help the reader navigate back and forth between different pages. However, there is one thing which I think could be improved to ease the reading experience. One could add padding to the sides so that the text doesn't take up the complete horizontal space in the browser. Even otherwise, the overall organization of content could be improved. One other thing the website lacks is the use of effective pictures to capture the reader's attention and convey necessary ideas.

return to top of page