Project Overview

HOW MIGHT WE

HMW encourage customers to make the most of abundant cheap green energy and avoid using expensive fossil fuels?

THE SOLUTION

In-app updates and push notifications to provide Octopus customers with high-quality, live information to help them make better decisions.

KEY OUTPUTS

Secondary research, including data scraping of customer experience reviews.
Primary user persona.
Low-fidelity sketches.
High-fidelity prototype, coded by Developers.

Team

UX Lead, responsible for UX/UI, working alongside 5 Data Scientists and 4 Software Engineers.

Duration

24 hours

Tools

Figma, Canva

Constraints

Time (!)

Data limitations

01 / 05

Research & Discovery

Secondary Research

I firstly led my team in completing secondary research to help us better understand the problem space, the users and the current solution being offered by Octopus.

Energy stats and current attitudes

46%

of adults, esp. single person

homes are most worried

about energy bills

£1690

is the average UK

household dual

fuel bill

81%

of 25-34 year olds believe

climate change urgency

is needed to prevent an

environmental disaster

Octopus-specific

Ease of use was the

#1 most important app

feature for Octopus users

*App Store data scraped*

Current in-app solution for

promoting green energy

use involved a

hidden notification

feature

Defining the Problem

As time was the essence, I then used the secondary research to narrow in on a target moment of intervention for a target user, so we could begin to flesh out our design solution.

Target moment of intervention

Instead of using energy when it's more expensive and in higher demand, get consumers to switch to off-peak hours where it's cheaper and greener

Target user

Although we didn't have data about the Octopus customer base, we found that Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to speak up about climate issues and adopt changes to save the planet

Proposed solution

Push notifications, manually enabled, that would provide Octopus users with high-quality, live data about cheap energy times to help them make the most of abundant green energy at off-peak times.

02 / 05

Synthesis

Proto-persona

To narrow down who we were solving for, I created a proto-persona of our primary user. Meet Stephanie.

Existing Design Approach

I wanted to research what Octopus were currently doing. Here I delved into their Design System, Coral, to learn more about the typography, colour and components they used to build the existing app. I also read interviews with current members of the Design Team to learn about their ethos. In summary, this was simple, consistent, transparent, personable and efficient.

03 / 05

Sketches

04 / 05

High-Fidelity Design

Updated home page,

displaying latest feature

Where users can see and

set up Smart Notifications

Updated readings to

show improved patterns

and resulting savings

05 / 05

Presenting to Octopus

With our solution designed and then coded,

we then set out to present this to a team from

Octopus Energy at the end of the 24 hours.

We spoke through:

our process
our solution
how we would measure success, and
next steps (A/B testing, iteration of design,
marketing campaigns)

With our solution designed and then coded,

we then set out to present this to a team from

Octopus Energy at the end of the 24 hours.

We spoke through:

our process
our solution
how we would measure success, and
next steps (A/B testing, iteration of design,
marketing campaigns)

Takeaways

How to perform as UX Lead and sole Designer.

Working as the sole UX/UI Designer on this project was initially challenging but overall rewarding. I had the opportunity to take my team through Design Thinking methodologies and facilitate brainstorming sessions to arrive at our solution. I was lucky to work with a great group of people who supported my work along the way and gave me great feedback. I was also able to guide Data Research and Software Development through a user-centric approach.

How to collaborate with Software Engineers and Data Scientists.

Here I learnt so much about the role and importance of your tech counterparts. I learnt how Data Scientists scraped user data to help us arrive at a solution, and saw how Software Engineers took my Figma designs and built these out using their tech stack. The conversations along the way taught me so much about collaborating to deliver.

How to work within an existing Design System.

I was pleased I took the time to research Octopus' current Design System, Coral, as well as read about their current approach to UX. This helped ground me and made the prospect of designing our solution far less daunting. I now feel more confident in unpacking, integrating and using an established Design System, and have seen the value of this in creating consistent experiences.