Designing for behavior change
Supporting Opower's mission to reduce energy usage, I led redesign of the 30+ utility sign-up forms, drove color-blind accessibility investigations, and developed a vision for a mobile energy-saving experience
COMPANY
OPower
Location
Arlington, VA
Year
Jun 2011 - Dec 2011
ROLE & TEAM
UX Designer amongst six UX
Overview
Opower (now part of Oracle) is a leading cloud-based software-as-a-service platform that uses AI and behavioral science to help utility companies engage customers and drive energy efficiency. Partnering with over 175 utilities, it delivers personalized home energy reports, proactive alerts, and load-shifting tools that have saved over 32 terawatt-hours of energy.
Overview
Opower (now part of Oracle) is a leading cloud-based software-as-a-service platform that uses AI and behavioral science to help utility companies engage customers and drive energy efficiency. Partnering with over 175 utilities, it delivers personalized home energy reports, proactive alerts, and load-shifting tools that have saved over 32 terawatt-hours of energy.
My Role
As UX designer I led multiple efforts to elevate Opower's suite of products
I Ied redesign of 20+ sign-up forms for Opower utility portals, including heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, ideation, rapid prototyping and usability testing
I developed a comprehensive color-blind accessibility presentation for design consideration, ideating on small wins with the team
I developed initial personas and vision for a potential Opower mobile offering to drive behavior change and energy savings on the go, when shopping for new appliances, and beyond
My Role
As UX designer I led multiple efforts to elevate Opower's suite of products
I Ied redesign of 20+ sign-up forms for Opower utility portals, including heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, ideation, rapid prototyping and usability testing
I developed a comprehensive color-blind accessibility presentation for design consideration, ideating on small wins with the team
I developed initial personas and vision for a potential Opower mobile offering to drive behavior change and energy savings on the go, when shopping for new appliances, and beyond
Impact
My work led to the redesign of all Opower sign-up forms, including updates for color-blind accessibility guidelines to help with utility-specific branding, ensuring a faster onboarding for all types of users looking to understand their energy usage.
My work on the new potential mobile offering helped explore and unpack potential user journeys for future investment in the on-the-go energy savings space.
Impact
My work led to the redesign of all Opower sign-up forms, including updates for color-blind accessibility guidelines to help with utility-specific branding, ensuring a faster onboarding for all types of users looking to understand their energy usage.
My work on the new potential mobile offering helped explore and unpack potential user journeys for future investment in the on-the-go energy savings space.
Research
Opower's sign-up forms were designed and built by a single team absent designer, and had not been updated or explored for UX or best practices. Understanding the information needed for the forms (requiring a paper bill), errors that might happening during fill of the form, and general interaction elements all sorely needed love. As these forms were also customized by utility with their own color stylings, many were inaccessible to those with low vision or colorblindness.
To explore needs for the sign-up form redesign I looked across the home reports Opower offered, the sign-up portals, ideating through sketch and sticky note ideas which I used to drive a brainstorm with product and UX. I created multiple personas to anchor the types of needs across various consumers. I dug deep on colorblind evaluation tools and best practices, the underlying types of colorblindness, to provide better guide to utilities and our default approach to designing the sign-up forms.
Beyond sign-up forms, senior leads at Opower were interested in the potential for new forms of engagement in mobile. For the mobile offering consideration I led some mapping on the web app IA, to understand the offerings and structure on desktop that might be useful for mobile, a net new initiative to explore potentials for things like embedded ads for energy-saving devices when shopping, or on the go tips for quick consumption to drive better energy use habits.
Research
Opower's sign-up forms were designed and built by a single team absent designer, and had not been updated or explored for UX or best practices. Understanding the information needed for the forms (requiring a paper bill), errors that might happening during fill of the form, and general interaction elements all sorely needed love. As these forms were also customized by utility with their own color stylings, many were inaccessible to those with low vision or colorblindness.
To explore needs for the sign-up form redesign I looked across the home reports Opower offered, the sign-up portals, ideating through sketch and sticky note ideas which I used to drive a brainstorm with product and UX. I created multiple personas to anchor the types of needs across various consumers. I dug deep on colorblind evaluation tools and best practices, the underlying types of colorblindness, to provide better guide to utilities and our default approach to designing the sign-up forms.
Beyond sign-up forms, senior leads at Opower were interested in the potential for new forms of engagement in mobile. For the mobile offering consideration I led some mapping on the web app IA, to understand the offerings and structure on desktop that might be useful for mobile, a net new initiative to explore potentials for things like embedded ads for energy-saving devices when shopping, or on the go tips for quick consumption to drive better energy use habits.
Design
My work led to the redesign of all Opower sign-up forms, including updates for color-blind accessibility guidelines to help with utility-specific branding, ensuring a faster onboarding for all types of users looking to understand their energy usage.
My work on the new potential mobile offering helped explore and unpack potential user journeys for future investment in the on-the-go energy savings space.
Design
My work led to the redesign of all Opower sign-up forms, including updates for color-blind accessibility guidelines to help with utility-specific branding, ensuring a faster onboarding for all types of users looking to understand their energy usage.
My work on the new potential mobile offering helped explore and unpack potential user journeys for future investment in the on-the-go energy savings space.