SmartElec
Smart in operation, Clever in optimation
Why this Concept?
To showcase my designing skills, I took up the challenge to design a prototype for a mock app to monitor the usage of electricity on regular basis ensuring the usability and its experience.
The project was perfect for me to demonstarte my skills as a UX/UI designer.
I have always considered that inorder to achieve a result in optimizing something one needs to have a track on its usage or consumption.
What is Smart Meter?
The smart meter is future for power industry and serves as an interface between consumer and the utility company. It records the power usage of consumer and communicates this data in a timely manner to utility center.
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Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system.
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Its data analysis deals with data acquisition, communication, processing and elucidation that benefits to consumer, utility company and government.
Why is the need?
The Government of India’s initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Smart Cities’ need the efficient, reliable and continuous power supply.The advanced energy management and increased use of renewable energy resources are the foremost areas concentrated by governments for the development of country.
Energy meters are a key component of a power supply system and play a significant role in revenue protection, quality control, compliance with regulatory requirements, consumer satisfaction and image building.
Project Scope: 8 weeks
Project Type: Personal
Role: UX Research, UI Design, Usability Testing
Tools: Paper, Pencil, XD, Photoshop, Figma , Invision , Marvel
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Overview
Indian electricity sector has witnessed tremendous growth in its energy demand, generation capacity, transmission and distribution networks. Keeping pace with the recent technological advancements, it is deploying new types of devices and ICT infrastructure, adopting new monitoring, control and energy management tools, and aiming at fast deployment of smart grid concepts at distribution as well as transmission level.
So with adapting new monitoring tools there will definitely be a need for an poratble mobile based application to manage and operate these tools.
Challenge
Before I dive deep into the design process of designing a prototype for this app, the challenge was to ensure the success of smart meter installation because without actually knowing the success story of the installation there would have been no relevance of designing this app as its future was uncertain.
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Small Report on Smart Meter Installation:
Several government initiatives and policies, such as Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Program (R-APDRP) and Central Electricity Authority (CEA) guidelines, have paved the way for intelligent smart metering in the country. The current size of the energy metering market is approximately US$ 340.82 million and it is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8-10 per cent over the next 4-5 years.
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Sucess story and performance of few pilot projects carried out for smart meter deployment in late 2014 is shared below.
Source : India country report on Smart Grids, Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi.
In Budget 2020, FM urged all the states and UTs to replace the conventional electricity meters into smart meters in next three years.
Goal
After ensuring the future of smart meters, the primary goal is to identify and understand the users and provide them a better way to Control, Manage and Monitor their electricty usage.
Design Process
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Empathize - Survey, User Interview
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Define - User Persona, User Journey Mapping, POV (Point Of View)
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Ideate - HMW (How Might We), Brain Storming Ideas, Product road map, User flow.
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Prototype - Wireframes, Prototype
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Test - Usability Testing, Final UI Screens
Research
Surveys
A survey with 11 different users were carried out using a form. The questions were based on habits, motivation, and challenges while dealing with electricity usage to billing. The responses were collected in the form of multiple choice and short answers to get more insights at an early stage.
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Survey Statistics :
72%
Try to reduce usage
81%
Find it hard to reduce
91%
Wish to track daily usage
91%
Are willing to reduce usage
Interviews
I conducted user interviews in order to get more insights into a better understanding of their experience without any tracking or monitoring of usage. The interview took approximately 10-15 minutes and included topics to get to the core of what users are trying to do and what their problems are. So I asked:
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How do you feel when you pay your electricity bills?
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Can you tell me a little bit about your experience with electricity meters?
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How do you control your daily usage?
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How do you track your daily usage?
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What are the challenges you face?
"The most frustrating stuff is to feel helpless while paying the electricity bill is to know you have no options to track and reduce the actual consumption"
Pramod 46yrs - A frustrated user
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"Even if start noting my daily usage reading manually from the meter, I fail to continue with the trend at times."
Sudheer 35yrs - A frustrated user
Define
Personas
After getting insights from user research I had a clear understanding of who my target user will be and created a persona. User persona will help me make better design decisions that will satisfy the user's needs.
Empathy Mapping
Empathy maps are a great tool for understanding your users, organizing our research, and driving a human rather than a technical view of a product.It allows us to understand the broader influencers in user's lives. And by organizing our research into a coherent vision, this tool allows us to gain empathy with our users and to create a cohesive, empathetic view of them.
User Journey Mapping
To uncover areas of opportunities I decided to use the user journey mapping. A user journey map will help me visualize the steps users take in order to accomplish a goal. During the process, I will analyze each step and see where the opportunity lies and how the user experience can be optimized.
Ideate
Defining Problem
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Point of view = User's + Needs + Insights
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Keeping user needs and Insights POV statement allows me to generate possible solutions in a goal-oriented manner followed by HMW to kick start my ideation process.
Brainstorming Solutions
From HMW statement I started generating as possible ideas as I can possible. The goal here was to cover every aspect of the problem and find an appropriate solution.
Product Features Roadmap
After brainstorming different ideas, I created a product features road map and prioritize them.
Build an app that let's user Control, Manage and Monitor their daily usage
User flow
A user flow was then created to understand how a user would navigate through the structure of the app. Here I primarily focused on how the user would ultimately set up the daily usage limits, Turn on alerts and start tracking their daily usage.
Prototype
Information Architecture
Information architecture aims at organizing content so that users would easily adjust to the functionality of the product and could find everything they need without big effort.
Wireframe
Based on sketches I started creating wireframes.
UI Kit
Following the Style Guide, I crafted a UI Kit that would inform the Design System for SmartElec.
Test
Usability Testing
I tested the prototype with 5 people. The participants were aged between 25 - 45yrs and are related users.
The objective of the test was :
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How easily users are able to set up the device
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How easily users are able to set up daily usage, alert and progress
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How easily users are able to track their daily usage
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How does the overall experience feel like
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What improvements need to be made
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Test Results
Test Completion Rate: 100%
Error-free rate: 95%
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5 out of the 5 participants were able to set up the device successfully.
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5 out of the 5 participants were able to set up the daily limit, alerts and progress successfully.
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5 out of the 5 participants were able to track their usage.
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4 out of the 5 participants are willing to use these features on a daily basis.
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4 Participants felt the experience was smooth and easy.
100%
Test completion rate
90%
Smooth and easy experience
95%
100% Error-free rate
95%
Are willing to use the app
Setup your daily usage limit and notification alert
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Setting up usage limit and notification alert with remind the users of excessive usage daily. Users can now limit their desired daily usage.
Informative Dashboard​
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App dashboard will show the total consumption status to the users.
Saving Tips​
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Users can read articles on informative saving tips to reduce the consumption.
Estimation of Usage​
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Monthly usage will also let users know about the estimated usage for the month based on average usage of the current month.
Final UI Screens
The final design screens of the SmartElec app
What's next
More usability testing, Research, and Analytics would uncover additional pain points and would lead me to take better design decisions. One takeaway from working on this concept was understanding the planning to synthesize findings in the most helpful way to our users within our constraints.
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