Accenture Challenge
Developing community initiatives to build greener neighbourhoods
Overview
Climate change poses a real challenge to lifestyles and ecosystems. It is definitely possible for societies to make a difference, and more attention should be given to the contributions of individuals and communities in making positive environmental impact. We designed a mobile app that enables residents to manage and set goals for the consumption of their household utilities, and encourages them to work together to build a sustainable living environment.
Role
During a three-day hackathon organised in conjunction with Accenture, I was the designer in a three-person team working to create a solution for residents to take actions in their homes that reduce costs and benefit the environment.
Challenge
Currently, the Singapore government's initiatives to make homes more sustainable are largely limited to public housing, while we found that the average monthly energy consumption of a private home in Singapore can get up to 25% higher. We wanted to encourage communities in private estates to adopt sustainable practices.
Period & Timeframe
June 20173 days
Skills
UX Design, UI Design
Tools
Pen & Paper, Sketch, InVisionResearch
We conducted an online survey of households to learn more about their resource consumption patterns and attitudes towards sustainable practices. We found that they:
- Feel that they cannot reduce their utility expenses much further
- Find managing their utility expenses difficult, as monitoring resource consumption is too tedious
- Tend to lead fast-paced lifestyles and lack the habit of conserving resources
- Believe that setting goals is helpful but troublesome in managing utility expenses
User Needs & Goals
By learning about their pain points, we decided that our solution should encompass:
- Convenient and streamlined method of monitoring resource consumption
- Community incentives and reminders to encourage users to go green
- Efficient and meaningful goal-setting that motivates users to make progress
Design
The pressing issue was the difficulty in managing their utility expenses, and we felt that a feasible way to tackle this was to encourage households to implement an intelligent home control system with smart plugs and meters, in line with Accenture's objective to support residents in making investments. The assumption we made for this concept was that intelligent home technologies are prevalent and capable of generating usage insights.
We decided to design a mobile app for residents living in private estates to easily monitor, manage and set goals for their resource consumption, with an incentive system that benefits the community through individual efforts. After putting pencil to paper by laying out the user flow of the app and drawing key screens, I converted my sketches into high-fidelity mockups.
Monitoring utility expenses effortlessly
Usage data collected from intelligent home technologies is displayed and updated daily in 'My Expenses'. Users will not have to review a bill at the end of each month to keep track of their utility expenses. The data is also broken down into easy-to-understand insights and tips, supporting users in adopting sustainable practices.
Setting meaningful goals efficiently
In line with supporting users in setting reasonable goals and cutting down their utility expenses, we decided to draw on the average usage data of their neighbourhood to give them a sense of where they stand. Also, we presented their goals as savings and benefits to motivate them and show that their sustainable practices have impact.
Managing resource consumption intelligently
Besides using smart plugs and meters to monitor energy usage, users have the flexibility of turning specific appliances on and off, either independently or based on a schedule. Also, they can easily plug in an appliance and set it up on the app.
Benefitting the environment as a community
We introduced 'My Community', where residents can accumulate points for their private estates through meeting savings goals or contributing to sustainable community projects such as compost bins to reduce food waste. The points can be translated into estate-wide benefits or incentives in collaboration with Accenture's partners.
Prototype
We are very happy to have emerged as second runner-up in the challenge, and received positive feedback from participants and the organising committee. Click on the link below to try our interactive prototype!