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Transactive Energy Service System
Collaborating with Post Road Energy to develop a product that assesses the "prices-from-devices" transactive energy, improving power grid efficiency to meet current and future energy needs
- Project funded by the Department of Energy (DOE)
Conceptualization UX Design
Survey Research + Contextual Inquiry
👋 INTRODUCTION
What is Transactive Energy Service System (TESS)?
Transactive energy uses market-based methods to coordinate energy generation, consumption, storage, and delivery among buildings, distributed resources, and the power grid, enhancing system efficiency. "TESS" is our software platform.
What's my deliverables for TESS?
I led foundational research on archetype validation for energy applications, finding most users as explorers and achievers. Along with the team's efforts, I incorporated the research outcomes into the initial product design. I delivered the prototype to Hitachi for further iteration before the Fall 2024 Beta launching in Maine.
📚 RESEARCH | Survey Research
What do we want to find out?
With an economist, data scientist, and engineer, we aimed to identify archetypes suited for energy products to enhance user engagement. We conducted foundational research using methods, including survey design, analysis, regression, and reevaluation, to determine user archetypes on a large scale (500 participants).
What do we want to achieve with the archetype model?
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Explore how users interact with energy-related products
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Investigate what drives users to engage with energy-related products
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Examine users' preferences for participating in energy-related products
Identified archetypes through our survey questionnaire
ACHIEVERS - 34.75%
EXPLORES - 36.20%
SOCIALIZERS - 18.32%
INFLUENCERS - 10.75%
Identified archetypes via followup survey with the same participants 2 months later
ACHIEVERS - 35.06%
EXPLORES - 37.67%
SOCIALIZERS - 16.85%
INFLUENCERS - 10.41%
📚 RESEARCH | Competitor Analysis
Ohmconnect is the main competitor to TESS
Ohmconnect's slogan, "Save Energy Save Money," promises a 10% reduction in electricity usage, aiming for 15% or more. The company uses gamification, including point rewards and notifications, claiming users save $300 to $500 annually.
What happened to Ohmconnect
Studies shows that the error rate in estimating load consumption can reach as high as 50% because customers are hesitant to grant aggregators full control over their associated assets (Weng et al., 2017).
🤔
Donate watts
Enter to win prizes
🧐
Notification through messages
Maximize future earnings
Friend referrals
Smart home technologies
Takeaways
OhmConnect's features and rewards are not compelling enough for users to grant full control to aggregators. TESS should identify features and incentives that build interest and trust to boost engagement.
📚 RESEARCH | Contextual Inquiry
Monitor energy consumers as they pay their utility bills
Recruited 20 energy consumers to observe their behavior on the utility portal during bill payment. This study aims to capture their actions and reactions when paying bills.
Takeaways
The study revealed that most energy consumers show latent behavior towards energy products, though some do monitor charges and compare bills over time. This shows that incorporating latent behavior into product design is essential.
Just pay for whatever that's billed without analyze it if it appeared to be normal
Pay for the bills, at the same time check which section got charged the most
Pay for the bills and compare it with previous months
Analyze the bills thoroughly before paying for it
📚 🔍 RESEARCH | Summary
We discovered there are three main areas need to be focused on in TESS product design
Our research identifies three key focus areas: features that offer customization features for convenience, options for usage preferences settings, and designs that cater to achievers and explorers to enhance interest and engagement.
Convenience
Energy consumers seek convenience that allows them to save money consistently without requiring much attention or effort (latent behavior)
Calendar
Schedule
Automatic
Turn-On
Weather
Forecast
Usage Preference Customize Settings
Energy consumers want the ability to adjust their preferred savings methods, enabling them to make decisions based on two key factors: comfort and savings
Comfort
Mode
Saving
Mode
Add/Delete
Devices
Learning & Competitions
Energy consumers want to interact with features or information that ignite their interest in understanding their utility consumption as they earn incentives
Leaderboard
Notification
Savings
Preview
🔔🚨 The stakeholders have decided not to include incentive elements in the initial stage of product design, as they are still assessing the scalability of incentives for TESS
💡 RESEARCH SYNTHESIS | Journey Map
Which stage of the user journey are we focusing on in this research?
Building on our user research, we sought solutions that enable participants to remain engaged with energy-saving programs like TESS over the long term and consistently strive to earn incentives from the program’s features. We hypothesized that by identifying the dominant behaviours and traits of TESS participants, researchers and designers could more effectively develop features tailored to their needs and preferences, thereby enhancing engagement. Since our survey research indicates that many consumers are primarily explorers and achievers, minimizing social and influencer features would support a more effective gamification approach for driving engagement.
💡 RESEARCH SYNTHESIS | Persona
User persona to walk through pain points
Cecelia, a full-time housewife with no primary income, is keen on finding ways to cut expenses. Managing a household budget of under $1600 a month for herself and her three kids requires careful planning. TESS could be an excellent resource for her, aiding in the management of even minor utility costs.
Meet Cecelia, a full-time housewife
💡🔍 RESEARCH SYNTHESIS | Summary
How do we form the solutions based on the research?
The team reviewed the research outcomes, considering resource limitations and stakeholder expectations, and determined that the features to be included in TESS should focus on those that resonate with three key personality types: latent behavior, achievers, and explorers.
Our vision
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Enhance energy efficiency by actively engaging participants in TESS
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Encourage participants to be enthusiastic about their involvement in TESS
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Foster continuous learning and discovery for participants through TESS
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Ensure participants interact with the TESS system seamlessly
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Empower participants to feel in control of their devices through TESS
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Build participants' trust in TESS's incentive program
Convenience
Motivation
Learning
Communicates latent behavior
Communicates achievement
Communicates exploration
🪡 IDEATION | User Flows
What do we design features that ensure particpants understand and move through the features with intentions
Since the identified values are motivation (achievement), learning (exploration), and convenience (latent behavior), the team aims to connect them to ensure that participants fully benefit from the TESS program and remain actively engaged with the product for greater advantages.
🪡 IDEATION | High Fidelity Wireframes
Basic Set Point Settings & Displays
The basic set point settings and displays serve as the product's core functionality, providing participants with a way to communicate their desired flexibility between savings and comfort with the system.
When participants sign up for TESS, they gain access to adjust the preferred level of flexibility for each enrolled device, determining how much they want to save. They can make changes at any time, anywhere, whenever they want.
The energy market is cheaper than the set point, so participants are saving more
Learning
A preview of the current state of charge
A preview of the savings achieved for the device in the current month's cycle
Motivation
When participants move slider button to comfort, it means less savings
The slider bar represents real-time energy market, due to the dynamic nature of the market, the button & bar are not always aligned
❗️❗️The slider bar and the slider button both represent different functionalities, with the bar showing the current energy market price while the slider displays the set point of the participant's preferred set point.
🪡 IDEATION | High Fidelity Wireframes
Advance Settings
Along with the basic shortcut for settings (above), I've also added advanced options for participants to customize their saving preferences, mode settings, and calendar schedules.
Three saving preference buttons let participants choose between more, less, or moderate savings
Participants can select from mode settings: fan, air conditioning, or heater
The "Neutral" saving preference means the temperature will adjust between 4°F and 8°F from the set 70°F, depending on the market price
If turned off, it will automatically reactivate within 3 hours
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Three settings are provided to participants to customize their saving preference based on their weekly schedule
Customization options include Sleep, Active, and Away settings.
If turned off, it will automatically reactivate within 3 hours
Convenience
🪡 IDEATION | High Fidelity Wireframes
The Leaderboard
This leaderboard is designed to motivate participants by letting them track their performance based on daily actions and interactions with the system, and compare their progress with others to see how others have excelled.
Motivation
A preview other's performance
Learning
Insights provided on performance
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⚡️ Welcome to the TESS dashboard
✨ THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS
What's next for the future?
At SLAC, my role was primarily research-focused. I led a survey research to identify archetypes for energy products like TESS and used these findings to inform the initial product design in wireframes. I then handed over the research and design to the Hitachi UX team to further develop the user interface and interactivity. I also shared my notes with the team, offering suggestions and recommendations for the next steps.
Usability Testing
TESS is a relatively new energy tech product with few market competitors, aside from Ohmconnect. Our research shows that Ohmconnect struggles with user engagement, making it less useful as a reference. Therefore, it's essential to conduct usability testing throughout the design process - step by step, continuously. Each feature must be rigorously tested to ensure users can effectively adjust their preferences based on their savings goals and energy market conditions. The product has many complex elements, especially in encouraging users to grant full device access and engage regularly with the app, using savings as an incentive.
Put defined archetypes at heart when design TESS
Given that our research identified achievers and explorers as the primary archetypes for energy products, designers should focus on these archetypes when developing features. Features targeting other archetypes should be minimized, as our research indicates they do not significantly contribute to user engagement with TESS. For instance, features aimed at socializers and influencers—such as social media integration, friend connections, and content sharing — do not significantly add value to the product's goals. Therefore, it's best to avoid investing too much effort in these features, as they may not provide significant benefits and could waste resources.
Explorer's journey:
Join
Program
Learn
Features
Customize
Settings
Earn
Incentives
Adjust
Settings
Earn
Incentives
Explorer's thoughts:
"I'm curious to see how much I can save by keeping the +savings mode on 24/7 for a month. What additional steps can I take to save even more if all hours are already set to +savings mode?"
Achiever's journey:
Join
Program
Customize
Settings
Check
Incentives
Check
Rankings
Adjust
Settings
Earn More
Incentives
Achiever's thoughts:
"Why have I been stuck at rank #3 for the past two months, and what can I do to improve my ranking? Perhaps I should check my settings more often to save more energy and move up."
Gather how incentives works would be helpful
One challenge the designer faced was that stakeholders could not determine the most effective incentive method, whether cash, prizes, points, gift cards, or donations. Knowing this would help the designer create more effective signifier features.
Final thoughts
This project represents a fundamental user experience research and design effort for me. It was challenging to gather information from stakeholders across various divisions and piece it together on my own as the sole UX expert in the organization. Nevertheless, I’m proud of what the team has accomplished in such a short time with limited resources. Feel free to review my research process for identifying archetypes for energy products as well.
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