The idea behind
The world's best "Forbrugerweb" at Vestforsyning
The core of the project for Vestforsyning is to create a user-friendly website "Forbrugerweb", which can help increase consumers awareness about their consumption of electricity, water and heat. "Forbrugerweb" allows energy consumers to report meter readings, see various statistics about their energy consumption and get an overview of the bills.
The Purpose
The conscious energy consumer.
"Forbrugerweb" is meant to create an overview for the consumers, and give them the opportunity to see various histories and future estimates of their energy consumption. The consumers must be able obtain knowledge about their current consumption, and at the same time gain influence on it. The core idea being, that by becoming more aware of their energy consumption, and having detailed knowledge of changes and developments, the consumers are to a greater extent able to intentionally manage their consumption.
The Process
Use driven development and interdisciplinary collaboration.
We are currently developing wireframes and user interface design, as well as defining the website's structure and appearance. KMD is responsible for the programming of the website.
Our work is based on use driven development. Different methods have been used to obtain a varied and broad understanding of the domain. Desk research has focused on similar systems and implementation in different products areas, to inform the process on pro´s and con´s of existing solutions. The end users have been involved in buliding user scenarios, designing personas, as well as in mock-up tests and cognitive walk throughs of the initial prototypes. Finally user involvement has supported fruitful discussions, that have inspired the development of new functionality.
The Result
Forbrugerweb - intuitive and specialised at the same time.
One of the biggest challenges in a public system like "forbrugerweb", is to encompass groups of very different types of users. It has been a core focus in the implementation and development of the interface, to create a system that is as clear and simple as possible, but still useful for expert users as well as novel computer users. The interface is based on identifiable graphic elements, and simple point an click selections, while still making sure the site is sufficiently specialised so that an expert can get the information he or she wants.