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01 · Case study

Kids Edition Echo

A voice assistant kids love and parents trust.
Amazon · Devices

I led design for Amazon's first kid-focused Echo, shaping a voice experience simple enough for a five-year-old to use on their own, and trustworthy enough that a parent would put it in their child's room.

Launched Amazon's first kid-focused Echo, expanding the addressable market into the 8-and-up age range.

RoleSenior UX Manager · Built & led the design org
ScopeAlexa · Echo · Kids & Family
TeamUX & voice designers, research, beta program management
Timeline2017 launch · ongoing
Echo Dot Kids Edition with Panda design on a space-themed background
02

The goal

Amazon set out to give Alexa a place in kids' lives that parents could feel good about. I led the design of that voice-forward experience. It had to be easy and fun for a young child to use, and reassuring enough for the parent handing it over. We expected a device built specifically for kids would deepen content engagement and grow Amazon Kids+ subscriptions.

03

Designed for kids, trusted by parents

A child in a onesie sits among plush toys with a Rainbow Echo Dot Kids Edition on the table
Built to live in a child's world.

The Echo Dot Kids Edition gave children a new way to learn and play with Alexa, and gave parents the controls to feel comfortable handing it over.

  • For kids: educational Q&A, age-appropriate activity suggestions, and household and kid-to-kid calling.
  • For parents: guided device setup, daily time limits, parental controls, and the ability to block songs with explicit lyrics.
Amazon Parent Dashboard on a phone showing a child profile, recently opened activities, and a daily time breakdown
Parent Dashboard: a clear view of activity and time spent.

I owned the design of the Parent Dashboard — the primary surface where parents set time limits, review activity, and manage controls. I also designed the child setup and Verified Parental Consent flow, the moment a parent grants permission for Alexa to collect their child's voice data. It had to be clear and legally sound, and reassuring enough that parents understood what they were agreeing to.

04

How I led it

I assembled and led the cross-functional team behind the product, including UX designers, voice experience designers, researchers, and beta program managers, and set the operating rhythm that kept quality high as the feature set grew.

Day to day that meant allocating resources, guiding and reviewing design, fostering feature ideation, running design-review protocols, and presenting to executives. I directed the research strategy as well, combining ethnographic, qualitative, and usability studies to understand what parents and children needed, then turning those findings into product improvements like richer content discovery. I also staffed and built the beta team that validated the experience and confirmed launch readiness. That team became a core discipline within the Kids Experience Team, continuing to validate features and assess readiness well after launch.

05

Timeline

Echo Dot Kids Edition timeline showing four phases: Launch of the original Echo Dot Kids Edition, Fast Follow with usability-driven updates, 2nd and 3rd Generation with kid-directed ID and software design and the Echo Glow, and 4th Generation with continued customer focus
Launch → Fast Follow → 2nd & 3rd Gen → 4th Gen: each phase driven by customer feedback.
06

Outcomes

The Echo Dot Kids Edition launched in 2017 to strong customer response, with reviews calling out the easy setup, the expanding feature set, and the kid-directed design. It widened Amazon's addressable market, adding active users in the 8-and-up age range.

Super easy to use. The kids version is nice because if they tell it to play a song that is really not appropriate for them, Alexa will tell them it contains explicit material.

Amazon customer review, Echo Dot Kids Edition

Want to talk about designing for kids, or building and leading the team that does it? Get in touch.