Home Energy Management
To combat the current climate crisis, we’ll have to change the way we live, including how we heat and power our homes. British Gas will need to transition its 12M households to green solutions. Hive - part of the same company - is the ultimate platform to bring energy and smart home technology together, helping users to both understand and change their energy consumption.
Hive and British Gas have recently entered the air source heat pump and electric vehicle smart charging markets. EVs and heat pumps are both huge investments and come with a whole range of anxieties. We have to help people overcome these hurdles and help them understand what these changes mean for their homes.
Once people are on board, there’s an additional task of instilling behaviour that helps balance the electricity grid and avoids fossil fuel power plants having to be turned on to deal with unexpected (peak) demands.
Building a high performing team
As the head of a newly formed team I had to balance creating a strong team culture and establish ways of working both within the team and across teams whilst delivering ambitious roadmaps.
Over the past 20 months, the team nearly doubled in size (from 10 to 18) and has become a high performing team with a strong culture - where people trust and challenge each other. In addition to the Product Design and Service Design disciplines, I built out a UX Research function to make sure we keep the user at the heart of everything we do.
We did a major overhaul of the Hive app and website and many parts of the British Gas website, whilst delivering several entirely new propositions as well as numerous new features and improvements. We introduced a friendly and engaging illustration style for both the British Gas and Hive brands. All of this meant closely collaborating with the Brand, Product and Tech teams.
Reimagining the Hive app
One of the biggest projects my team worked on was to completely reimagine the Hive app. Traditionally the focus of the Hive app had been controlling smart home devices. With the new company strategy to help people make their homes more sustainable, the Hive app desperately needed an overhaul.
We made sure we remained relevant for the existing user base, providing quick control for those with controllable devices. At the same time, the new app will give insights into energy usage and advise people how to optimise, resulting in both cost and carbon savings.
The new app was gradually rolled out to the entire (2M) user base.
UX Research
In a new market, there’s a lot to learn. I make sure the team does regular user research; ranging from explorative studies with early adopters to usability testing with high fidelity designs.
There’s so much to consider when buying these solutions; not only the upfront investment, but also running- and maintenance costs, eligibility for government grants, and, last but not least, the temporary disruption to people’s homes and lives. We help people understand what it would mean for their specific situations and their homes, and guide them through the process which can take several months.
We’re working on solutions where all your home energy management devices work together seamlessly and can be seen and controlled in one place, rather than having to manage them through several apps. Having the design and research parts of the team work hand in hand ensures we can truly make a huge impact to help people live sustainably and affordably.
“My HEM [Home Energy Management system] is currently a Frankenstein’s monster, with many pieces that don’t fit together.”
Early adopter research participant
“That [buying a boiler] is so different to an air source heat pump journey. It's almost shocking how on the ball and technically astute you have to be to even select an installer.”
Heat pump prospect research participant
Results
Whilst the redesign and restructuring of the Hive app was mostly a strategic move with on of the most important reasons to future proof the app, it yielded great business results too.
One fundamental change to the new app structure was a dedicated ‘discovery’ tab. This tab provides both educational content as well as the option to discover (and subsequently purchase) new products and services. Whilst there was a ‘shop’ section accessible from the hamburger menu in the old app, giving discovery a prominent place in the app made a massive impact on the sales generated through the app. With the introduction of the next gen app, the app sales saw an increase of 109%.
109%
increase in app sales
