Consumers Energy- Developing compelling data visualizations for energy efficiency projects
OPPORTUNITY: Consumers Energy set out to evaluate comprehension and utility of personalized energy efficiency reports for their business customers. The reports were part of an overall effort to decrease energy usage from business customers.
APPROACH: Circular by Design (CBD) faciliated a series of paper prototype studies to understand how business customers were using reports, if at all. Perceived obstacles and opportunities with energy efficiency measures were also gathered.
IMPACT: Rather than solely focus on the reports themselves, CBD made sure to understand roles and approaches to energy efficiency within customer organizations. As a result, it was found that reports were mostly opened by individuals within the organization that were responsible for paying company bills rather than those concerned with energy efficiency. In other words, they were not used at all for majority of participants. In addition, based on conversations with participants, scenarios were developed that made clear how participants might use existing and future energy efficiency data. These scenarios were used to develop future-state data visualizations for customers.