The Challenge
"We aim to appeal to a broader audience with our Toon products. Targeting those less technically inclined, make our Toon Display interface accessible, relevant, and appealing to these new demographics, and deploy them to new touchpoints."
Investigate the key user journeys of the selected primary persona.
Identify the top tasks and their context.
Design an interface that is intuitive, inviting, relevant, and recognizable.
Establish a strong product identity for Toon that aligns with the Eneco brand.
Design the Toon Display, mobile, and tablet app.
Tech for nerds
Toon serves as the interface providing control and insights into home energy usage and heating. Developed by Quby and released by Eneco to its customers with energy and gas contracts. The current user group primarily consists of higher (technical) educated Caucasian men with an interest in data and home automation. This group, considered early adopters for Eneco, is comfortable navigating a learning curve and extracting information from complex data. They actively contributed to improving the Toon product through feedback and usage insights, but this group is too small.
The Business Case
This situation hindered Eneco's growth, prompting the need to make Toon attractive, accessible, and relevant to a larger audience. This approach benefits both Eneco, attracting more users, and users, providing better insights and control. Redesigning also allows consideration for the structure to accommodate potential future scenarios or functionalities. Redesigns typically bring new insights and opportunities from user research.
The User Case
For the new target audience, investing time and energy in a steep learning curve for a digital product is not a given. A product needs to be more intuitive and contextually relevant. Our task is to first explore the desires, habits, needs, and frustrations of these audiences. Choosing two extreme personas (tech-savvy and digitally illiterates) allowed us to begin researching and creating relevant customer journeys and top tasks.
These top task descriptions in different scenarios served as a basis for designing interfaces and interaction design. The design is optimized for various contexts: on the wall for quick 'at a glance' information and control, on mobile for on-the-go control and reassurance, and on the tablet for detailed data insights.
An intuitive product interface
For the visual aspect of the interface, we initially sought a direction to enhance intuitiveness for a non-digital audience, reminiscent of the approach taken with the introduction of the iPhone and the application of skeuomorphic design. This audience likely transitions from an analog thermostat to Toon's digital interface. After numerous prototype tests, we settled on a beautiful minimalist flat UI with a prominent use of color.
As a final exploration, we focused on giving the multi-screen Toon product ecosystem a distinctive identity seamlessly aligned with the Eneco brand. Once again, color played a significant role, providing recognition and a sense of comfort and warmth, contextually extended across different touchpoints.
My role and accountabilities
Research Lead
Business development
Translate client request in project plan
Product design lead
Creative Direction
Team motivation and inspiration
Stakeholder management and presentations