Mobile Service App - WindStax
Windstax is a team mobile service app project of Interaction Design Studio. The objective of the project is to design a mobile native app that utilizes data to improve services of a company. My primary contribution in the team is domain research, ideation, micro-interaction design, logotype redesign, and creating the narrative in our in-class pitch.
To understand our company, Windstax, the team conducted research through Windstax’s website, LinkedIn, social media, and other online sources. From our researched we learned that WindStax Energy is a full-service developer of integrated renewable energy solutions. WindStax offers complete wind energy and wind and solar hybrid solutions. They focus on commercial and industrial projects ranging from one building to community-wide microgrids and small-scale renewable energy farms. They invented the concept of “prosumer” - consumers who generate and consume their own energy.
The biggest advantage is that WindStax are scalable – unique in the industry, that multiple WindStax can be clustered and share central electronics. Their systems are set up as hybrids aggregating wind power and solar power in a centralized microgrid, pioneers of this concept. Given the short history, small size, and small number of competitors, Windstax has a huge growth potential in its field. The current operation of Windstax collects performance data from all of their systems, which provides the team an opportunity to utilize those data in our design.
After completing our domain research, we began to identify WindStax stakeholders and their respective goals, needs, preferences and key attributes. Then, the stakeholders and their needs were arranged into a map that illustrates the value exchange among them. We mainly focused on the values exchanged between the Windstax executives, their clients, and the on-site installers. From this, we were able to identify a lack of information flow between clients and executives.
Before creating prototypes, the team determined the brand and voice for our app. We want to educate people in an informative yet provocative manner so that users can feel good about their green practices. That way, users can continue using them. Our voice should sound confident and well-intended to convey that this is a product aimed at taking steps to save the planet. At the same time, we want to come off across as trendy to make our product the “it-product”.
For the low-fidelity prototype, our initial focus was to create an app for users who are interested in installing WindStax wind or solar systems but don’t have enough information on the actual installation process and products. Our app would bridge this knowledge between solar providers and potential consumers. This prototype has a very linear flow. It includes a location and camera feature to assess feasibility of installation for users. Based on the explicit informaton that the user provides, they are shown their best fit alternative energy practices. They can view specific offerings from which they can configure to their liking. We also included a screen that shows positive affirmations to make users feel good about their environmentally-friendly decision.
The critique of this prototype mainly pointed out that we needed to focus on one realistic data-gathering technique. So moving on to the mid-fidelity prototype, the team maintained the majority of the flow of the low-fi prototype while addressing the clarity of location and on-site image data collection.
The mid-fi prototype incorporated imagery and other visual elements in its design. We produced a color palette for the visuals of the prototype, which include green, blue, and orange. Although this choice is different from the color of the company logo, which is black and red, we made the decision to primarily use green to better deliver the message of clean and renewable energy. The flow of this prototype is still very linear, where users start from putting in their location and installation site images, proceed to view recommendation of products in the order of best-fit according to their situation, and configure their product to send the order information to WindStax.
Through the peer critiques, we received some very constructive feedbacks. The most important question was “How could potential users know this app and why they use it?” This was a challenge for the team to answer. After consideration and discussion, we realized that a single-use mobile app that target new customers does not make much sense. Potential users could easily order their systems by phone or contacting WindStax online, such that they don’t have the incentive to download and use a mobile app that only helps them place one order. To address this problem, the team went back to our initial research and stakeholder map to identify potential new value creation that would lead to greater customer engagement to make the mobile app make more sense. In our research, we identified “stacking up”, combining multiple WindStax systems together, as a competitive advantage of WindStax, and further research revealed that most users acquire their systems through multiple purchases rather than a single one.
As a result, we changed our target users from first-time buyers to customers who already made their initial purchase. With an existing purchase, users are more likely to download an app for WindStax. The new focus of our app is helping users to scale up, as well as helping them monitor and maintain their current systems. This new focus allow us to highlight the stackable nature of Windstax products, create more sales for WindStax, enhance customer engagement by using the performance data that Windstax is already collecting to motivate customers and provide better recommendation for additional purchases.
Here is the link to our high-fidelity prototype. Due to the change in focus, for our high-fidelity prototype we incoporated the passive data collected by the WindStax units to create a dashboard for the user that would allow them to monitor their units, schedule maintenance, and view savings and energy generation over time. The features of the prototype are:
Redesigned logotype to provide a modern look to the brand while highlighting the stackable nature of WindStax. The highlight around the text “STAX” also resembles the sun, which is related to solar energy, one of the alternative energy solution WindStax provides
Landing page to welcome customers to the app, collecting their product information to draw corresponding data from Windstax
Home page that visualizes the renewable energy journey of the users, with blocks that summerizes the energy production and savings they get from each of their WindStax module, and an interactive line graph that visualizes their energy production and consumption over time to showcase how WindStax products are covering their energy usage, based on data collected from WindStax. By clicking on the blocks, users can see the individual performance of each module, and see the additional money and energy savings they can get from stacking up. From this page they can navigate to either the:
Stack up feature, where an AR feature native to mobile helps them plan the position of a new system in their environment, and sharing this data with on-site installers for clarity. The selection and configuration of products come after to help the users send a stack up order to WindStax
Maintenance page that allows users to search for common maintenance issues and reach out to WindStax for more questions. All the maintenance requests would also be archived for users’ future references.
The home page of the app allows multiple interactions. The interactive line graph at the bottom of the screen allows users to choose difference time frames for their energy history, triggered by users clicking on time frame options at the bottom.
We incorporated a breakdown view of individual module’s energy history where stack-up option is only offered for individual modules. The trigger of this microinteraction is through users clicking on a block, in the example on the right the “wind module”. This leads to a highlight of that module’s performance, dimming out other modules, changing the “energy history” below to the breakdown of that specific module, and a new block on the right side of the screen suggesting a stack-up option and its benefit.
This microinteraction gives users a more transparent view of individual module performance, while aligning with the app’s focus of “stacking up”
In conclusion, our app is designed to provide services regarding Windstax’ key competitive advantages: the stackable nature of their products, and customer engagement. From the customer’s perspective, the app gives them an easy way to monitor their systems performance, easily stack up their systems, and seek maintenance. We motivate them by showing them their energy saving journey, and we provide them with a more satisfying experience by timely solving their problems. From WindStax’ perspective, our app can deepen the relationship between the company and its customers by keeping customer engagement, facilitating communication regarding customer needs and providing customer system performance back to WindStax to provide insights of future mprovements.