In Part I of this two part blog series, I talked about the need to look for climate change energy adaptation technology that can reduce demand for electricity while we bring (or in lieu of bringing) replacement clean energy technology online. There are a number of very viable solutions that address this on a technological level including:
- Energy management and reporting software to identify and prioritize energy management issues, operate critical energy endpoints at optimal efficiency levels and validate investment decisions
- Building information management (BIM) systems to design for and monitor energy efficiency/maintenance
- Demand Response control system that optimize visibility into and analysis of mission-critical energy information along with reporting interfaces that communicate the need for load shedding to customers, turn kilowatt reductions into actionable price information and verify compliance.
But hardware and software are not enough. While control equipment and sophisticated application software determines how electricity demands are regulated, people still make the decisions on whether to invest in these systems and continue to use them. That's where user experience design comes in.
Principles of Design for Climate Change Energy Adaption Applications
In this post, I want to give a sampling of key principles that are needed for the design of successful climate change energy adaptation applications, particularly those delivered as SaaS or on mobile. These principles are just a few selected best practices we have developed from work on just under 400 applications (desktop, web/SaaS, and mobile). Also see our "Principles of SaaS Design" white paper for general guidelines that apply to any SaaS implementation.
Design for non-technical users
Energy management firms (I'm including Demand Response and BIM in this grouping, along with "traditional" energy management firms like Hara) tend to think of the users of their systems as technically savvy. They design their applications for functionality and create UI using generic patterns like spreadsheets, lists, dashboards and grid views to get the data onto a screen.But the reality is that when you deliver any application as SaaS or mobile, you immediately democratize the technology. Users tend to be far less technical and more relevantly, have far less time to devote to learning and using an application then developers anticipate. If you design an interface like a spreadsheet or a jet dashboard, users will find it too complex and will either not use or will use only when absolutely necessary. It hurts their pride and productivity because it does not aid in making sense of complex information. This translates to a low level of commitment and emotional engagement.
Instead you want to design your energy management application to replace generic data patterns with custom dynamic visualization based on user-validated use cases. Eliminate redundant information and provide predictable patterns of use that lets the user feel in charge. For "power" users, you can add additional complexity through modules or custom UI that lets them drill down. But keep the default design targeted on instant sophisticated use by anyone without the need for manuals or help desks.
Design for richness and interaction
Rich interactions let users manipulate data or objects using intuitive actions. Data manipulation and visualization is managed within panels of functionality that are integrated on a single screen. So for example, instead of entering numbers and clicking a submit button, a user drags a slider and the information updates dynamically. This kind of rich interaction is particularly important for energy management applications where the information can be complex and needs to be manipulated.
Richness improves the interest level and depth of commitment to the interaction the applications and features offer. User interact for longer periods and at a deeper level and are far more likely to share that interaction collaboratively with others.
Design brandable solutions
It may seem trivial, but to bind people to your product, you want to give them the ability to customize the look and feel of their administration, analysis and reporting screens. Personalization creates loyalty. A well designed SaaS energy management solution should allow for customizability both at the branding/co-banding level as well as customization of what panels or data fields are displayed.
The key is to design the UI so that brand and feature customization does not require separate code bases.
Build in radically simplified self-service across the entire SaaS customer life cycle
Your application is not just about managing energy. It is just as much about how people sign up for it, get support for it, provision it and even get billed for it - the entire customer life cycle. Designing the user experience for the customer life cycle is as important as designing the user experience of the core application. This approach is essential to reduce barriers to adoption as well as reduce costs.
Begin by systematically identifying all of the points in a SaaS application where the software or staff will touch the customer (e.g. early sales, marketing, demos, provisioning, configuration, billing, monitoring, renewals, support etc.). Then evaluate which of these touch points can and should be migrated online and be built into the SaaS application as self-service.
The optimal approach is to use automation and radically simplified self-service to do the tasks that would otherwise require support staff to service. User should be able to easily do these tasks on their own, right within the software without a human gatekeeper. When customer life cycle is implemented correctly in software, the cost of acquiring and supporting 1000 customers should be just marginally higher than for 1 customer.
Use mobile to build loyalty and provide additional functionality
Don't overlook and don't hold off on releasing a mobile app. But don't try to reproduce the functionality of the full desktop or SaaS application. Instead focus on companion functionality that specifically takes advantage of location, mobility, collaboration and always-on/always available functionality.
With the mobile app, focus less on designing for usability and focus more on designing for rapid learnability and discoverability. You want to deliver a compelling user experience that makes novices into experts with every interaction. This will be one of several factors that engenders "intimacy".
Embed analytics into SaaS and mobile apps
SaaS applications offer the ability to monitor when and how the software is being used, or perhaps more importantly, when and where the customer gets distracted, makes mistakes or stops using the software. Not only can you monitor how the customer uses the "primary" energy management application, but you can monitor where a user succeeds (i.e. good user experience) or fails (i.e. potential for dropout) in all of the other parts of the customer life cycle. Monitoring should also be built into companion mobile solutions.
This clearly enables you to learn how clients use energy management applications and therefore prioritize your R&D more effectively as to what capabilities to expand or where to refine the user experience.
I have only briefly touched on a few of the design principles for energy management/DR/BIM applications. Sustainability is really an exciting and rewarding area for Catalyst to work in. The integration of demand response, BIM and energy efficiency solutions has the potential to reduce demand for electricity by as much as 20 percent below projected peak levels. That will save big dollars and and go a long way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But that potential is completely dependent on the design of user experience for both the control and customer applications.
Categories: SaaS, Sustainability, User Experience