Alexa’s Super Bowl Pick Demonstrates Advances in UX

Over the past week, the internet has been captivated by Alexa’s pick for the Eagles to win Super Bowl LII, with tweets, videos, and articles featuring Alexa’s latest mantra: “I’m flying with the Eagles with this one because of their relentless defense and the momentum they’ve been riding off their underdog status. E-A-G-L-E-S. Eagles.”

Though most will look at this latest Alexa craze with a small chuckle and admire the assistant’s cleverness (or, if a Patriots fan, seething and swearing off Alexa), to me this response demonstrates a small step forward in user experience (UX) that has been lacking in digital assistants.

What Is UX?

UX is an increasingly popular acronym floating around the tech industry (not to be confused with user interface [UI]), and it captures a field targeted at improving the usability, ease of use, and pleasure provided in interactions between consumers and products. In the world of digital assistants, UX is about the smarts of a digital assistant and its ability to complete tasks asked of it in a satisfactory way to users.

Some would argue that, while there have been significant strides in voice activation as a UI, one of the biggest obstacles to the mass adoption of digital assistants is lacking UX. For anybody who has used a digital assistant, this is completely understandable. There is nothing more frustrating than asking Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, or any other the other various digital assistants a simple question, only to have it not understand or reference something entirely unrelated. This type of mishap is frequent enough that it has even resulted in satire about the experience with digital assistants. One such example is a CollegeHumor clip where a woman asks, “Siri, how big is the Serengeti?” and Siri responds, “No problem. Show me pictures of spaghetti.”

Personality Is a Plus

While Alexa rooting for the Eagles isn’t exactly a groundbreaking advancement in the field of artificial intelligence and natural language processing, the fact that users are fascinated with this phenomenon and think Alexa has a sense of humor creates a more positive UX with digital assistants, and can help spur adoption of these devices. Personally, the fact that I get a clever response from Alexa on who will win the Super Bowl, while my Google Assistant says, “My apologies. I don’t know that,” gives Alexa a leg up on Google because taking a side is more personable than saying nothing at all. It’s a small gesture on Amazon’s part that makes a big difference in my experience as a user. As it so happens, I also agree with Alexa. Go Eagles!