Redesigning My Energy Bill

Ryan Sterling

4 min readMay 28, 2018

WHY

There are a few potential value propositions for the end customer:

Utility bills are loaded with information that the common person may not understand.
Redeisgining the utility bill could provide opportunities for consumers to better understand their energy usage and potentially save themselves money, and save energy.
Creating a more pleasant and easy billing experience could increase customer retention and save energy.

THE AUDIENCE (WHO)

People that interact with a power bill are probably:

Adults living on their own.
Young adults in college with no help from parents.
Middle age adults beginning their careers.
Older adults, at the end of their career.
Location: at home (reviewing bills/budget) on the go: maybe just received their bill and want to glance at it.
Millenials , Gen X, Baby Boomerers.

CUSTOMER’S CONTEXT

Knowing the context of how the customer interacts with their power bill will help guide our possible solutions.

At home on a desktop or mobile device.
On the go on a mobile device.
At work, on a desktop or mobile device.
Trigger event: receives email.
Trigger event: looks at bank account and sees withdrawal from utility company.
Trigger event: looking to save money/budgeting.
Time: at home they have more time than on the go.
Emotions: motivated to budget, analytical, frustration.

NEEDS

Understand energy usage.
Save money/energy.
As an adult I want to understand my energy bill so I can learn how I can reduce energy and save money.
As an adult I want to quickly glance and my energy bill and know where I can reduce cost.
Some Problems include: current power bills have too much information, information about usage nobody understands, relation to usage and amount due isn’t relative.

IDEAS

A) Build a native app for adults who doesn’t understand their energy usage in order to save money and energy.

B) Design a QR code > app energy bill for adults who want to budget quickly so they can understand/pay their bill.

C) Design a desktop dashboard for adults that helps them understand energy usage so they can save money.

PRIORITIZE AND CHOOSE AN IDEA

I’ll place potential solutions on an Impact/Effort matrix to assess their feasibility. While all 3 solutions require a new product/platform to be developed, integrating a system to work within the current framework could provide the most adoption. For this reason, I would go with solution B.

SOLVE

Sketching a quick story board of the customer’s interactions will help us visualize necessary tasks.

TASKS

Scan QR code (mobile @ desktop) or click link.
View amount due.
View billing period usage.
View usage.
View usage history.
View usage compared to others.
Pay bill.

To start mapping out the interface, i’ll use the storyboard and tasks to map out the main flow of a customer discovering the application and viewing their bill information inside of the application.

Initial ideas require only necessary information. My power bill in its current state, contains a lot of information that I don’t know what to do with. Providing customers with an easy overview of their current/past billing will allow them to easily understand how much they owe, and provide a simple method for payment.

A usage tab will outline the power usage for the current billing period. Customer’s will have the capability to toggle billing periods. Customers might also like seeing their usage compared to other people in their area. This might give them an idea as to whether or not their usage is excessive, and provide insight to where they can cut back on usage.