ETA+
From 1 meter reading a year to 96 a day, designing for business intelligence in the real estate industry.
Portfolio overview: properties, consumption signals, and drill-down entry points.
Role
Senior Product Designer
Year
2023
Team
Product Owner
Technical Property Manager x3
Financial Analyst
+ me
Deliverables
UX Architecture,, Design Prototype
What happens when buildings start sending 96x more energy usage data? How can the building manager use this data to improve energy efficiency? What are the key insights they need to make informed decisions?
"Our technicians have a clearer understanding of energy efficiency, but we have to manually sift through the data to find the most relevant insights."
– Financial Analyst, Enterprise Customer
Going over a data file with a building technician.
Aggregating data in Excel was doing the job, to an extent.
A flat table view didn't convey what network each of the user’s servers were in. Additionally, any inquiry into this matter had to involve support or refer back to the original networking plan, which was supplied by Excel.
Power BI prototype: cuts, filters, and metrics we tested with stakeholders.
Validating early by prototyping with PowerBI
To validate early on, we used Power BI. The goal was to aggregate the correct data while our customer guided us through their pain points. This approach allowed for real-time collaboration, that enabled us to understand the potential of discovering new insights.
Information architecture and phased flows after prototype feedback.
Architecture and User Flows
Based on the feedback from the prototype, we started sketching out the architecture and user flows. It was a big project, so we had to break it down into smaller parts and phases
Geography and local weather as inputs to fair comparisons across sites.
Problem: Weather is local, and so is energy usage
One of the biggest challenges we faced was calculating energy usage based on weather. Since temperatures and weather patterns vary from one location to another, we needed to make sure that localized weather was taken into account for those calculations.
LUZERN login: split layout, architectural photography, and mint-accent UI.
Property hub: usage over time, benchmarks, and comparison in one place.
Where we landed
A delivered a proof of concept that allowed the customer to see the the aggregated data in a well designed application. The app prioritzed the ranking of properties based on their energy usage and efficiency.
Next case study
Tiny Dinner