All utilities, simplified at a glance

Simplifying and centralising utilities in one intuitive, mobile-first experience for consumers and businesses.

Product

Product

MyAcea Energia

Period

Period

2021-2022

Role

Role

UX Designer

My role

Led the creation of the MyAcea Energia utilities management app:

  • Created a coherent and flexible design system

  • Collaborated and aligned with key stakeholders

  • Unified fragmented desktop and mobile services into one intuitive application

Challenges

An energy company does not only provide electricity and gas. Most of the time there are a lot of services related to an energy supply.

The project goal was to create a collector for all these different services and centralise them on one single mobile platform, creating one complete customer experience.

  • A centered user experience that collect different services in one mobile platform

  • An easy way for them to communicate with their users

  • Position them as a digital and innovative company

Where things were at

  • 3 different touch points have to be match in one app

  • Long time to deploy updates to the main system

  • No direct channel to share offers and communication with customers

Web portal for utilities management

Website for loyalty program

What users were saying

To make the service more intuitive and user-friendly, I interviewed customers to understand the challenges they were facing and the improvements they wanted to see.

Users reported difficulties finding key information such as bills, payment options, consumption data, account numbers, and plan details. Many also expressed frustration at having to visit two separate websites to check their gas and electricity usage.

Finally, several users complained about the ticketing system, citing confusion around ticket status, ownership, and the next steps toward resolution.

I just want to see if I need to pay

I don't know how how switching is going"

I've spent 13 minutes looking for my last bill

I'd like to have electricity and gas utilities in one place

Some examples from the research deck illustrating key user needs and primary mental models

UX goals

Once understood and tracked services structure, I started defining user flows and information architecture for the new product with 3 key goals:

  • Simplify the access and management of utilities

  • Increase discoverability of key information

  • Make the app feel modern and intuitive to use

First, I worked on simplifying the process of managing utilities by creating a single central page that brings together both electricity and gas services. This page connects all relevant information in one place, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple layers of subpages.

Set up frequent and live collaboration between teams and discipline

With project managers, product owners, and the other stakeholders I defined a 2 weeks Sprint process with continuous feedback and iterations.

I mapped and estimated all app sections and split them into Sprint. This roadmap allowed us to follow the progress and adapt project needs to timing and contingency, moving the section from one Sprint to another.

Start from what is already known

At the start of each sprint, I defined the functionality to be discussed and defined a user story to focus the conversation on a specific flow.

I also incorporated research insights, such as user needs and mental models, to ensure that product decisions were aligned with user expectations.

Map what's live today

I mapped each functionality flow based on the defined user story, highlighting current pain points, showing what users are familiar with today, and illustrating how the back-end structures the information.

Current flow to check their consumption and meter readings

Current flow to file a ticket (mobile and web)

Keep stakeholder aligned on design choices

For each functionality, I presented the initial drafts and design drafts to stakeholders from the three involved units: Development, Business, and Marketing.

I showcased the UX proposals and facilitated discussions to reach a shared agreement, clarify technical constraints, address business requirements, and ensure alignment with the brand identity directly in the live session, assuring transparent communication and effective alignment.

Feedback matrix for design review

Start building a consistent design language

During the Sprint session, in parallel to the creation of the first wireframes, I've started working on a design system and design language that will reflect the branding guidelines and will make the app feel modern and friendly.

Once the design system was in a good enough state I've started creating the screens directly in high-fidelity, speeding up the hand-over process of approval from stakeholder and hand-over to engineers.

Some UI explorations

Design system designed consistently with brand guidelines

Iterate on design based on feedback from stakeholder

After the first review of the initial draft, I reviewed stakeholders’ feedback and iterate the design, in order to present an updated version to the next session, this time including a UI implementation to give a more realistic sense of the final experience.

Intermediate iteration of the utilities page list

Increase discoverability of key information

Once the core pattern was approved by stakeholders, I began defining what information to display and how to present it in an intuitive way, ensuring that all key details are accessible at a glance within the app.

Redesigned journey to check utility consumption and pay bills

Following this collaboration method I've been able to address each functionality and reach an approved solution by every team, leaving the homepage last. Now that all modules are defined, the teams can more easily align on what are the most important information to display at first.

Even though each team wanted to include their modules on the homepage, I recommended keeping all key information visible in the first viewport, so users can quickly see an overview of their tools.

This decision was supported by the user research we conducted earlier.

Homepage iterations

Finalised Homepage

Impact

Thanks to the centralized app, the company has saved an average of 12% in time when deploying updates and communicating with customers, eliminating the need to update each channel manually.

In addition, the app was downloaded over 5,000 times in its first week, with 98% of customers successfully migrating from the web platform.

+12%

Saved deploy time

98%

Customers migrated from web platform

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Challenges

An energy company does not only provide electricity and gas. Most of the time there are a lot of services related to an energy supply.

The project goal was to create a collector for all these different services and centralize them on one single mobile platform, creating one complete customer experience.

  • A centered user experience that collect different services in one mobile platform

  • An easy way for them to communicate with their users

  • Position them as a digital and innovative corporate

Analyse

The actual product should be a collector for different services. We studied their information architecture, user flows, and how to improve them on the new app.

Through the creation of user personas based on stakeholder interviews about their customers, we were able to define how services could be improved and implemented into the new product.

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