LYNQ
A digital companion for managing sustainable energy at home, and for your business.
ROLE
Product Designer
DATE
June - July 2024
CLIENT
Massif Energy
OBJECTIVE
Design early iterations of a product for sustainable energy management, while conducting market validation.
DESIGN APPROACH
Given the context of the project and the client's needs, I adopted a 0-1 approach in my work. During the course of this project, there were two main areas of focus that I stuck to:
— RESEARCH
I had to fully grasp the existing context for users in this particular use case scenario, and how I would be able to translate it into the designs for the product - this meant gathering as much data as possible to really understand what the targeted end-users were looking for in this particular niche.
— RAPID ITERATION
This product was in its early stages, and the client made it clear that they weren't looking for a final prototype. Keeping this in mind along with the short time allocated to us, I kept my work simple but clear enough to understand the product's features and how it functions.
THE PROBLEM
Our client had a vision for an on-the-go digital interface that users could access in order to monitor their energy usage and behaviour, as well as their VPP (virtual power plant) performance and status over time.
Some features were conceptualized by the client, but without market validation and extensive user research, there was no clear indication for how specific these features needed to be, or if they were needed at all.
SOLUTION
The outcome of this project was a usable early prototype that successfully displayed relevant information, with a user user flow reflecting the desired functionality as stated by both research participants and the client themselves.
This prototype went on to be used by a different cohort of designers and project managers as a point of reference for future iterations.
LEssons Learned
— MAKING ROOM FOR COMPLEXITY
This product was intended for a very complex purpose, despite the simple UI and functionality. If given the opportunity to work on something like this again, I would be more mindful in how the features are flushed out to make the product feel more polished and aligned with its intended purpose.
— INFORMATIONAL CLARITY
Although the clients and stakeholders were satisfied with the way the information was displayed, I feel like there could have been more opportunities to further improve on the quality and clarity of the information; allowing users to easily navigate and interpret the app.