ENERGY PORTAL
Ideation and design of a new and innovative energy portal
THE PROBLEM
Create an energy portal like no other– taking the core features that competitors offer, and adding additional intrinsic value.
The energy portal is a dashboard where users access and interact with their home’s energy data that has been collected by their utility. Utilities can communicate with their users, encouraging energy use reduction and speaking to applicable programs. There are many program providers, so we also needed to plan ahead to distinguish this product from others by offering additional features.
MY ROLE
I was hired as the Lead Designer of behavioral products, beginning in part with this energy portal.
I conferred with stakeholders on this product, including Product and Project Managers, and Engineering Leads. Also, I worked in an Agile environment alongside engineering on production.
RESEARCH BEHIND THE PROGRAM
Collection and analysis of usage data can help identify baseline use, peak hours, and, if conveyed correctly, help to sway behaviors.
Residential energy use accounts for over 20% of annual emissions (Environmental Protection Agency, 2011), making it a prime target for intervention. Recognizing the possibilities in this, utilities have exponentially increased the number of behavioral programs that target such actions and reduce energy use. Across America, programs targeting behavior change account for a large portion of utilities’ first-year energy efficiency savings goals. The top 10 states most reliant on these programs in 2013 claimed that 13–28% of their savings came from behavior programs (Opinion Dynamics Corporation and DNV-GL 2015).
But what do these programs do? They all seek to change behavior by dispensing information. Feedback is an effective way of changing behaviors.
WIREFRAMES AND PLANNING
I planned for several social elements, including community challenges, individual tasks for reward, and information showing behavior impact.
Competitions and games can be and effective way to change behavior and reduce energy consumption. According to the ACEEE paper Gamified Energy Efficiency Programs (Grossberg et al. 2015), energy efficiency competitions motivate behavior change, not necessarily for the purpose of earning a reward, but because the process itself is fun. Just the element of competing can make an activity more enjoyable and challenging (Deci, Koestner, and Ryan 1999), and it may motivate participants because they do not want to lose (Haran and Ritov 2014).
DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE PROCESS
When it came to designing the interface of the energy portal, I focused on interesting highlight of the data, and use of color. So many competitors have portals that are really white, and the data is not conveyed in an easy to understand nor interesting way. There is also something to be said for creating a more dynamic product.
The early release of the product was to focus on the core modules. I skinned and prototyped it using highlight colors from ICF's color palette.
PLANNING INTERACTION ELEMENTS
SOME OF THE TESTING QUESTIONS
Are users clicking on items that are not clickable?
What information is the user looking to acquire that may be missing?
Category: Preference
Test type: Explorative
Do users trust the peer comparison?
If we don't include information about who peer group consists of, will users trust the peer comparison data?
Category: Preference
Test type: Explorative
Does the user understand the cooling disaggregation module as it pertains to the current month?
Category: Cognitive
Test type: Explorative
Do users users value seeing energy consumption data by calendar month or by billing cycle?
Category: Preference
Test type: Comparative
Does the user feel this product has enough intrinsic value to warrant a return visit and continued use?
Category: Behavior
Test type: Explorative
MOVING TO MOBILE FIRST
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