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Helen West

Conversational recipe search

ROLE

UX consultant

DISCIPLINE

Conversation design & strategy

Working with Publicis.Sapient, I redesigned the voice interactions for Recipedia, Unilever's Alexa recipe skill, to improve recipe discovery, enhance search relevance and give customers a way forward when their initial search failed.

Photo of Alexa Echo on kitchen worktop with someone preparing meal.

01. Project overview

The challenge

As Amazon's default recipe skill, Recipedia attracted high volumes of traffic. Unilever wanted to maintain its position while addressing customer complaints about failed searches, irrelevant results and conversational dead ends.

My role

I led improvements to the conversational UX, collaborating closely with another designer, an analyst and a third-party development team to improve the Recipedia experience.

The outcome

The redesigned journey introduced guided recipe discovery and more helpful error handling. Within two months of launch, there was a 15% uplift in users choosing to hear recipe details, a key indicator of successful searches.

02. From research to refined conversations

Understanding behaviour

Analysed Amazon reviews and the 300 most-used search terms to identify common search failures and conversational dead ends.

Designing guided search

Used card sorting to identify search preferences, then designed guided conversations around ingredients,
cooking time and dietary needs.

Prototyping and testing

Built voice interaction models and a Pullstring prototype, testing how people understood and responded to Alexa's prompts.

Refining the experience

Worked with copywriters and developers to expand recognised food terms, improve conversational consistency and error recovery.

03. Selected work

Analysing customer feedback
Testing Alexa's search responses
Understanding search behaviour
Identifying opportunities for improvement
Designing for failed searches
Failed search conversation

Analysing customer feedback
Testing Alexa's search responses
Understanding search behaviour
Identifying opportunities for improvement
Designing for failed searches
Failed search conversation

04. The solution

Guided recipe discovery

When an initial search failed, Alexa offered a guided alternative, helping customers narrow their choices by ingredients, cooking time and dietary requirements.

More helpful error recovery

Instead of ending the conversation when a request couldn't be fulfilled, Alexa offered relevant alternatives to help customers continue searching.

More relevant search results

Expanded recognised food terms and improved the handling of broad requests, such as looking for something to cook for dinner.

05. The outcome

Helping more customers find the right recipe

The redesigned experience launched in August 2018. Within two months, the proportion of users choosing to hear recipe details had increased by 15%.

The improvements helped customers discover relevant recipes and gave them a way forward when their initial search failed, creating a more helpful and resilient conversational experience.

The redesigned experience launched in August 2018. Within two months, the proportion of users choosing to hear recipe details had increased by 15%.

The improvements helped customers discover relevant recipes and gave them a way forward when their initial search failed, creating a more helpful and resilient conversational experience.

Helen West

Helen West

Conversational recipe search

Conversational recipe search

Conversational recipe search