Deconstructing The Brief

“Create an innovative digital experience to demystify household energy.”

The brief is centered around creating something customers of NPower can use to help them understand their energy consumption and how to be more energy efficient in the home as well as knowing what NPower have to offer customers. Customers should be made aware of how to apply for energy-saving improvement schemes, how to save money in the home and be made more aware of how they are using their energy, how it is wasted and how it could be saved. The aim of the project is to create something that customers will be able to use everyday in the home to in the long run save themselves energy. To do this we need to create an innovative product which will not be used by customers for a couple of weeks or months, but continuously to help them be more mindful of their energy consumption and in turn lead to savings – if customers are saving money they are also in turn saving the environment, even if in only but a small way. Users need to know how much they could potentially save through mindfulness, how much more they could save through signing up to an energy efficiency scheme and what these may be, as well as what their mindfulness could mean in terms of an impact on the environment. Motivation will be a key concept within the brief to keep customers on the right track in regards to energy consumption. We must create something different to what current energy providers are already offering on the current market to keep ahead of competitors therefore we must highlight what NPower can offer customers that other energy providers simply cannot.

Considerations

We need to find out what real people know about the energy improvement measures on offer, and what the barriers to engagement are.

We should look at current awareness websites and resources. What are their digital user journeys like? Where do they do well, and where and how do they break down?

How could our solution help npower stand out from their competitors? What can npower do that others can’t?

Can npower harness the younger generation’s greater environmental consciousness and tech-savvyness to engage their parents?

Could gamification (the use of game play mechanics to encourage engagement and desired behaviour) encourage families to look at the current energy efficiency of their home, and to visualise the potential savings and environmental benefits behind npower’s energy saving measures?

User Persona

This is a persona for a typical family who would not only benefit from the use of our new application, but also be likely to use it making the most of being an npower customer.

User Research

NPower’s target market is essentially any household in the UK currently using or in need of gas and electricity. NPower currently are focusing on families at this moment in time as well as households who are eligible for free energy-saving improvements in their home and may not know what they’re entitled to as well as any households falling outside of this bracket who may not be eligible but are still interested in bringing energy efficiency measures into their homes through the use of energy efficiency measures and the use of micro-generation appliances. By wishing to get families involved in this together NPower begin to teach younger generations what it means to aim to be more energy efficient in the home, and hopefully then what this means for the environment. Getting children involved could be a great way to teach them and give families something they can work on together (e.g. remembering to switch off lights when leaving rooms etc. could then lead to rewards / gameification could be applied in this situation). Target users would also be those with an interest in the environment who wish to be more mindful of their energy consumption and the impending impact that would have on the environment. Target users are also potentially anyone looking to save money in the home, and it would be difficult to find someone who wouldn’t wish to.

Client Research

NPower wish to demonstrate their dedication to the customer and energy saving. They are one of the largest providers of energy, providing gas and electricity to many homes in the UK, operating a number of coal, natural gas, oil-fired and renewable energy power stations across the UK with a Bloomberg report for Greenpeace showing that NPower was one of the biggest investors in new energy infrastructure in the UK. They wish to make buying and understanding energy consumption simple and easy for customers to clear up any gray areas, meaning the customer makes the most out of their energy provider as well as cutting down on waste. NPower are dedicated to energy efficiency and improving the efficiency of boilers and appliances in the home, offering boiler surveying, servicing and a range of more energy efficient boilers to customers to help with savings in the home. They provide helpful tips to customers to help keep costs down in the home and on how to keep their boiler up and running to avoid any unseen replacement or repair costs – all focused on saving the customer money and wasting less energy therefore being more efficient.

Customer service is important to NPower as there have been situations in the past where they have been seen to not be top in the list of the big six where customer service is concerned. They hold customer service in high regard and want to show this through their dedication to the customer.

NPower is on a mission to reduce energy consumption, emissions and household bills and are striving to meet set targets to do with these aforementioned things which are achieved through energy saving improvements in peoples homes, in order for people to take up these energy efficiency measures they must be informed about them before this can happen, and in this lies the challenge.

Energy Saving Games – Touch Stone Energy

Touch Stone Energy provide a children’s game on their website which involves changing light bulbs to energy saving bulbs and turning off electrical appliances as quickly as possible to raise awareness about energy saving. The user is made aware of the energy they are saving in the bottom left corner by saying “you have installed a CFL bulb, 25 watts saved”

The player navigates around the house using the arrows on the key board and the space bar to create an action. This simple game could be improved greatly but it’s intentions are clear.

Energy Saving Games – “Ollie’s World”

This simple online game asks the users to click through the different parts of the house and answer seemingly obvious questions about how they can improve their energy saving. I don’t see children actively getting excited and wanting to play this game when they get home from school, but it is educational and raises awareness.

Dumb Ways To Die – Metro Trains

Dumb Ways to Die is a public service announcement campaign by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to promote rail safety. The campaign video went viral through sharing and social media starting in November 2012. The campaign has now turned into a game where users try to save the famous characters from the “dumb ways to die”. This is a good example of how gamification can be used to promote awareness. This is the sort of thing we could consider doing to incorporate into our app.

Smart Meter

My parents (Hilary) have a smart meter which displays the average cost per hour, depending on whats being used. I took some pictures of the meter at different times in the day when I new different electrical appliances were being used.

When electrical appliances that are on all of the time were being used like fridge/freezers and the computer (we always have the mac on standby or is in use) the average cost per hour was 7.23p.

When the iron was on, the meter reading increased greatly up to 33.33p and hour.

And when the kettle was on it increased even more than when the iron was on to 42.47p an hour.

The smart meter works by using a transmitter from the main electric meter to send the information to the smart meter which is displayed on the screen.

The bottom figure is the total amount since it started (or since new batteries).