Product Design Tips' 2020 yearly challenge asked designers around the world to motivate users on becoming good samaritans to our universal best friend: the Earth. In the wake of several ongoing global crises, it was a very relevant ask. Amanda Ding, Karen Lee and myself set out to create a hypothetical solution for a very real problem.
11.6% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from the energy used in homes and commercial buildings in cleaning, heating, lighting, and other activities. Increasing the efficiency of energy usage on a house-by-house basis would reduce emissions and help people become more aware of their environmental footprint. In order to accomplish this, we must persuade people to change their habits.
Our Smart Home Energy Report (borrowing from Google Home's style guide) "Google Home Energy," aims to help users to reduce their energy consumption rates by allowing them to track their electricity and water consumption. Actionable tips provide clear next steps of what might help them lower energy consumption.
We took a journey to distill what features work through a lot of research, rattling our brains, and of course, teamwork. Through our investigating, we discovered clear data to be motivating, and precise actionable next steps help users feel more in control of their energy consumption.
Comparing the energy use of appliances across time increments such as months, weeks, and days, allows people to change their habits. As the most highly valued feature, it deserves clarity and screen estate. Because energy usage is dependent on the size and usage of the the appliance, there are also appliance comparisons so users know which appliances to use less.
Recommendations accompany each device-specific breakdown screen to give clear instruction about how to achieve lower energy use and cost. Other options are to for example, turn off lights after an hour. There is also the option to not record energy usage, in case users do not want to modify their usage.
We set up a system that allows users to set a goal. These goals help users track their performance. Tracking performance is the first step to improvement, since how is anyone supposed to fix a problem they don't know exist?
Creating an imaginary persona with needs and want does not ensure that what we believe is actually true. We wanted to ask a smart home user or smart device user and conduct a semi-structured interview to understand how a smart home worked. Their interview can be seen broken up below.
Most importantly, was the admittance to not doing enough, despite care for environmental stewardship. Since people don't have the time and energy to focus on doing their part for the environment, it was our goal to make things easier for them. Convenience is cited as the primary reason for having a smart home device. Specifically pertaining to energy, what was learned was that knowing the energy consumption of each device would alter this interviewee's habits.
The three of us brainstormed some features that align with Google’s company goals as well as its app-specific goals. We kept in mind that these features would be incorporated into the already existing Google Home app. Then, we chose to analyze the benefits for four features that we thought would cede best results.
Because of this analysis, we felt that 'Goal Setting' would not be a feature we want to implement for this initial MVP because it would be highly dependent on the users' own initiative.
For the tasks given, completion rate would be taken note of. Ease of completion markers have been used in place of actual observation. We asked users to use specific features, as well as rate statements such as "I found the various functions were well integrated." Then, they could offer feedback if they wanted.
We received 13 responses. Out of the four task-based questions, only one question did not have a 4.5+ average. Viewing another day's energy consumption received a 3.2/5. Some of the users mentioned in the feedback directly that it was cumbersome. "i spent an unfortunate amount of time trying to view another day's energy consumption as i did not realize the graph was interactive" and "Viewing energy consumption from different days was the only feature that was any challenge to find, and that's because I'm not smart" are examples of feedback we received.
Hack the North has an active presence on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The marketing team works hard to make content calendars and campaigns so we're informed well in advance what kind of assets we'll have to make.
The font colours adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) such that the contrast ratio meets both small and large text requirements.
Alternative text for graphs clearly state what kind of graph it is, the units, its purpose, and any important information on it. In this case, the alt text would be dynamic depending on the days that have exceeded the daily usage goal.
According to Google's Material Design guidelines, the minimum area of response is 48dp x 48dp.
In the case of working with Google's brand guidelines, we analyzed when to use specific cues and what margins to use. We noticed how flexible Google's style is, yet how it remains true to what Google is. Though the style sometimes is different, the colours and fonts often make it all unified and illustrations often make screens fun!
Focus on the specifics
Another point that would be iterated upon are the energy-saving tips. The tips need to be actionable, direct, and relevant. Thus, research needs to be done on how to make them as relevant as possible for each individual user. Further iteration on the variety and scope of these tips are key to the viability of Google Home Energy as an energy-saving feature.
Seek what works in other use cases
There's a time and a place to question convention. That time and place is always, but when something has been proven to work, then it should stay. In this case in particular, it was the graph that compared the appliances that is most like its predecessors that comes in form of sleep tracking and app usage.
Accessibility is a non-negotiable
Given limited time constraint and purpose of the prototype, there are ways that the accessibility of the app can be improved. In line with Google Home's existing onboarding and accessibility guidelines, further research could be done into how to make all parts of the experience work well for anyone, regardless of ability.