Light It Up
September 2018
UI Design | UX Design | Visual Design
To design an application that helps users gain knowledge about their electricity consumption on a day to day basis. Time frame given: 5 days
Objective
Skills & Tools Used
UI/UX Design, User Testing, Prototyping, Affinity Mapping, Persona Making, Scenario Mapping //
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD
Major Problem
Areas
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Limited interaction with the the electrical appliances in the house, apart from switching them off/on, and general repairs and maintenance.
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No real time information on the amount of electricity being used in the house by various appliances, which can result in excessive or avoidable use of electricity.
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Voltage fluctuations going unnoticed which may result in malfunction or damage to devices.
Research
Research was conducted primarily through interviews. Affinity Mapping was used to make sense of all the qualitative data.
Two personas were created with the help of this data:
Scenario Mapping to further understand the context:
Concept Building,
Ideation & Testing
An idea was fleshed out into a concept. Further, three microinteractions were identified within the device - these were the interactions that were focused on, and iterated and tested.
Micro-interactions:
1. Switching the device on/off
2. Display of real-time information of electricity consumption by devices
3. How the device would bring to the user's attention any malfunction in the devices.
Rough visual depictions or cues were made of each of the ideations under each micro-interaction, and were tested with a group of 3 users.
The goal was to identify which iteration (under each of the micro-interactions) was the most understandable and intuitive to understand.
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Conclusions from testing:
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The learning curve from switching on/off a physical switch, to switching on/off a digital switch is quite small.
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Numerical data was just as useful for the the users as the grphics/visuals were in helping them understand their overall electricity consumption habits.
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Colours were the largest indicator that helped users understand if something was wrong with an appliance, and also the most visual indicator.
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Users required that the ideal amount of energy usage also be shown.
Final Prototype
"Light It Up" is an application (displayed on a tablet, and connected to the electricity supply of the house) that helps users monitor their electricity consumption on a daily basis, and thereby take steps to reduce the amount of wastage/electricity used, and save money as well.
Further Testing
The final protoype was tested with users, where they were given tasks to complete by themselves. Users had to navigate through the application by themselves. Assistance was given only if they asked for it.
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Further feedback from users:
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The interface was simple, clear, easy to understand and easy on the eyes.
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The device was functional, useful, and did exactly what it had to do and nothing more (it did not do too many things or add unnecessary features).
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The interface was easy to use for most of the users. Some took a little bit of time finding their way through it.
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The information provided on the screen was easily understandable. Some doubts and questions were raised: Can the ideal limit be set by the user themselves? Can the real-time progress bar be calculated in terms of how much MONEY is being spent on the device instead of kWh (which some users did not understand) or just colours (which could be ambiguously interpreted).
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A majority of the users were able to perform all the tasks properly and within a very short period of time. The minority that took time to perform the tasks did not take too much of time.