The Problem

Design and build an interactive dashboard to inspire environmentally conscious behavior change among researchers in 4 office buildings.

My Role

I joined the WVED team when the team's ideation of the project shifted from tactile and "pushed" feedback to a digital interface made accessible in every participating office. I assumed the role of Lead Designer and on-boarded a peer, Belinda Huang, who assisted me to design the dashboard through the splash page and the horse mascots.

Research

We drew inspiration from multiple sources including Oberlin's energy dashboard. From previous studies on feedback's relationship to behavioral change, the team wanted to include empathetic gauges and gamification. We also conducted several focus group to analyze what data should be presented and how.

Insights

• While the scientific academics who make up the majority of the offices wanted information in the form of graphs and data points, the staff wanted simplified data.

• The animation of the tactile predecessor engaged testers and had a positive influence for sustainable behavior change.

How might we create a space for workers to understand their net energy consumption?

Concept

The dashboard consists of 4 displays of data. 1) a mascot whose emotions reflect the office’s current position on the leaderboard. 2) a weekly leaderboard that reflects the ZNE goal. 3) Power demand aggregated and instantaneous of different energy end-uses in relation to the solar generation. 4) Energy Usage as a percent of the ZNE goal. Each display uses the color scheme of red (more energy used than generated), green (more energy generated than used), and yellow (energy generated).

Testing

The first iterations of the dashboard didn’t show enough emotion with the mascots and leaderboard.

Data was hard to read and not complete

Functionality of data block #3 was confusing

It was ironic that the platform was demonstrating how to reduce energy, yet the design didn’t reflect energy-saving techniques

Solution

Create design in blocks so each one can be shifted for responsiveness.

Simplify dashboard

Add a “tour” of information option

Add toggles to flop on and off certain information

Simplify Splash screen

the grid

As a splash screen for the interface, our team was greatly inspired by Oberlin's dashboard map. We too wanted to graphically display how and where energy is being used.

After serious considerations, we decided not to disaggregate the energy consumption based on specific office desks as to not induce self blame or office tensions. This final map is designed by Belinda Huang. 

the horses

Each building was randomly assigned a specific horse to be its mascot.  The T-shirt coloring is based on an individual office's progress relative to the ZNE goal. The mascots have 4 facial expressions to reflect an individual building's status on the leaderboard. The horses were designed by Belinda as well.

Challenges

Establishing the back end data flow to understand how the data can be presented on the front end

Thinking about an interactive touchscreen TV as the primary interface and creating in a responsive manner that presents the data easily for desktop and mobile users.

Moving Forward

Talk to users to evaluate effectiveness of disaggregation features and leaderboard

Analyze if behavior change exists