Kids’ wish list

A new browsing experience for kids and parents.

Context

From 2017 to 2021 my team’s mission was to build new shopping features based on needs and opportunities from product category and vendor teams.

My role

I was responsible for leading the UX design, ensuring alignment with business stakeholders along with  product and technical roles.

 

Overview

In 2017 Amazon set a company wide goal to introduce new inspirational shopping experiences beyond traditional search-driven visits, aiming to engage customers in fresh ways.

 

As part of this direction, we got together with the Toys & Children category team, seeking an opportunity to help kids engage with Amazon’s product catalogue.

Kids’ Wish List is a safe, digital browsing feature for ages 4-11, transforming the classic paper toy catalog into an engaging, kid-friendly digital experience.

 

This new feature let kids browse products and create wish lists that adults can view, making it easy for them to buy or share gift ideas with family and friends.

Kickstarting the project

To kick off the project and align stakeholders, I led a workshop to map the initial customer journey, identify challenges, and brainstorm feature ideas. This helped establish a clear vision, allowing us to refine and prioritize features for a minimum lovable product.

View of the customer journey along with a list of open questions from the workshop

I created a customer journey map to align the team, detailing user needs and challenges, which we refined as the MVP took shape. As there was had limited time for user research at this stage, I conducted quick desk research to understand other kid-focused experiences in the market. Then as a group we committed to make usability testing studies for validation.

Solution

Design work had two main work areas:

  • Parents experience: How to provide security and trust to parents to hand off devices to kids.
  • Kids experience: How to cater a experience easy enough for little kids but that would not patronize older kids?

To build trust with parents, we designed a clear, actionable landing page that informed and invited them to start the list themselves. 

For security, we implemented a “fenced” experience: parents create the child’s list and can access the kid’s view, but returning to regular Amazon requires re-entering the adult’s password.

Task flow definition for the different scenarios
Landing page and kids' CX access on mobile. A video piece was commissioned and developed under my supervision.

For the kid’s experience, I established key design principles:

  • Prioritize visuals over text to minimize complexity.
  • Use simple, intuitive interactions (scroll, tap and swipe)
  • Create a playful, bright UI that feels fun but not overly childish.
Whiteboard work defining interaction

When the design reached a mature stage, we needed real feedback from kids. Knowing low-fi prototypes wouldn’t engage them, I coordinated with the development team to create a high-fidelity prototype using Amazon’s catalog. We then recruited 15 children of Amazon colleagues for in-office testing, gathering valuable insights that guided our final design iterations.

Conducting user research with kids. Quite challenging!
Final iterations and specifications were prepared for handoff to tech, with a mini design system for developers, including UI elements like illustrations and icons.

Afterword

The feature launched in EU locales just in time for Christmas season. During the following year the feature expanded to other locales. The engagement metrics of the feature were pretty successful along with OPS (Amazon’s own metric to track profitability).

 

After 3 years, this feature along with others got absorbed into a new program, Amazon Kids, which since then is focused in kid’s digital content.

 

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