How might we change the way people use electricity to reduce waste and slow climate change?

 
 

Team:

Taylor Francis Lewis - Content Strategist

Icela Diaz - Business Strategist

Audrey Farber - Product Strategist

 

My role:

UX Lead

I was tasked with setting the product vision for Fermata’s digital solutions; identifying the UVP, product roadmap, and UX direction.

I worked on the designs themselves, but also managed a team of designers who worked on this project.

 
 

Tools Used:

 

Project Overview:

Our team was approached by Fermata to help them move from a highly customized, trial-product, to a scalable mature product system. Together with the client, we worked to identify a Go to Market strategy, define a product MVP and roadmap, identify requirements, create prototypes, and collaborate with product and tech stakeholders.

 

The goal was to scale: more chargers and more customers.

What is scale? Fundamentally it’s more chargers. Ideally it’s more chargers with more customers. We need to identify commonalities between customer/site needs in order to design and build something that will scale.

This means reliability, transparency, consistency, comfort, and frictionlessness for customers interacting with the system.

 

Challenges:

  1. Problem articulation: Fermata’s offering was innovative and inventive, but their team was having trouble explaining the value of its products to potential customers.

  2. Product roadmapping: Identifying how a digital product could or should function to compliment their hardware and how best to scale their products for the highest impact.

  3. Bespoke projects: Each bespoke project dictates its own product and project needs, which introduces needless complexity that will prevent scaling. Identify commonalities to establish feasible focal areas.

  4. Manual processes: Setting up and maintaining projects rely on manual and inconsistent processes. Automate these as much as possible for a frictionless CX.

 

Methods & Process:

 

Insights:

Target Market

We recommended an initial focus in New York, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Colorado, Vermont, and Connecticut. 

These deregulated markets are easier to enter due to the value to be provided in the “generation” portion of the electricity value chain.

 

Personas:

 

Outcomes:

See below for journey maps, wireframes, and UI screens.

 
 

Lessons Learned:

Never be afraid to jump in with both feet. This project was mostly challenging because the industry in which our client finds themselves is still emerging. There is so much ambiguity that the work could seem daunting. But at the end of the day, if you don’t take action, you learn nothing.