Overview

As electric vehicles have boomed in popularity in recent years, utilities have struggled to keep up with the growing power demand created by EV charging. In the second quarter of 2023, I worked with two major utilities to develop programs aimed at creating a behavioral shift in charging away from peak hours towards times when the grid is under less stress.

Project Deliverables

• Landing pages with program application and enrollment workflows

• Brand direction and design, including logos, icons, imagery, typography, and color

• Participant portals with engaging charts and data visualization

• Utility program manager dashboards for managing participant enrollment, viewing trends in charging data, and comparing the efficacy of different treatment groups

Team Structure

• Product designer (me 👋🏼)

• Product manager

• 1 Dev lead, 2 front end devs, 1 backend dev

• 2 Utility program management teams

Worked with utility stakeholders to better understand program goals and user needs

• Program goals were to engage users and create meaningful behavioral change

• Utilities struggled with application success rates in the past, so this was a key area to improve upon

• Utility program managers needed tools to better understand the success of different program incentive structures and view trends in data at the fleet-level

Complex domain with lots of 3rd party stakeholders and integrations

• 2 Different utilities with unique users, needs, and challenges

• Geotab (vehicle telematics hardware provider)

• Rolling Energy Resources (vehicle telematics via API)

• HubSpot as CRM tool

Maximizing program application success

One of the main project deliverables was to create an engaging program landing page. Utilities reported struggling with application success rates in the past, so driving interest in the programs and facilitating a successful application flow were major priorities. To accomplish this, I created multiple compelling entry points into the application and provided context for the user around how long the application is expected to take. I also highlighted both the monetary rewards as well as the vibrant charts and dashboards that they would gain access to by participating in program.

Another goal was to provide detailed information about the program in a way that didn’t overwhelm the user and dissuade them from enrolling. Participating in the program required users to share charging data, and utilities wanted to be tactful in how we educated users around this process. I took this goal into account when designing the site’s information architecture, and used techniques like progressive disclosure to reveal program details as they became relevant to the user’s workflow.

Participant dashboards provided a rich data visualization experience to engage users and help reinforce the desired behavioral change around EV charging. Program participants could utilize dashboards to track reward payout and monitor their daily and monthly charging trends. The end-to-end participant experience was designed to be fully responsive, with an emphasis on mobile views since most users would be engaging with the experience on their phones.

Utility dashboards were more complex than participant dashboards based on the needs of program managers. Using these dashboards, utility program managers could track metrics like application status, validate reward payouts, and measure the success of different incentive structures across various stages of the program.

• Overwhelmingly positive feedback from both utilities and participants on the dashboards

• Successfully enrolled 1500+ participants across 2 EV programs

• Increased customer engagement with charging portals (compared with previous utility programs)

• Improved program application success rates

• Reduced need for customer enrollment support

• Improved CRM data quality through form design and error handling

• Continued to work with utilities to incorporate feedback into iterative dashboard enhancements