THE BRIEF

TransGrid wanted to manage the energy in NSW with Tesla batteries around the peak hours for companies consuming a large percentage of power. The project was to develop the application to manage the cells in different modes and control the power in an energy-efficient manner.

THE CHALLENGE

TG SmartCharge (know as BESF internally) was the integrated project with the NSW government to manage their energy-saving with Telsa batteries. The challenge was to provide delightful user experience to operate the cell in different modes to save the energy bills.

THE PROCESS

Empathise

The project had kick-off with lean user research among the business stakeholders from the city of Sydney, product owners, business analysts and Tesla battery specialists. We conducted the few workshops to understand the requirements, users and its need.

Define

The application supposed to provide the control experience for the battery modes to keep the battery in different schedules to save energy. The problem statement was "How can customised schedule mode of batteries save the energy for large corporates around Australia?"

Ideate

We documented our findings with the product owner, focused on the scope, and clarify requirements to the most in-depth details of acceptance criteria. Each sprint went through the ideation phase to tackle each business requirements.

Prototype

The sketches were drawn in the paper to outline the user journey and low-fidelity concepts for the solution design to discuss in a team. Other steps of design iteration were wireframing/prototype in AxureRP to document all the interactions and process flow to present in front of stakeholders and product owners. To efficiently explore conceptual directions and get quick feedback, the team decided to iterate and validated designs extensively throughout the project.

Test

After the prototypes were ready for users to get an idea of the proposed solution. Design iteration in prototype allowed us to rapidly explore many directions early on without getting bogged down just yet by the potential implications. It also made it easier to frequently validate with the business to make sure we were addressing needs and designing efficiently.

THE OUTCOME

The final output was the product design to manage the batteries in different modes to save the energy and cost for the large industrial sectors.

The product design principles were of Global Experience Language (GEL). The team had to define, create and maintain the visual components to be used in a finalised design solution to suit the business needs.

Final Insights

There were technical challenges in security, architecture, and solution design to deliver the business goals. TG SmartCharge (known as BESF internally), the users were given the UAT environment to use and provide feedback for the improvement and refinement in product design.

Designing for components helped tremendously. Not only it allowed us to iterate and get quick feedback rapidly, but also forced us to plan efficiently and can be used globally across the product. Also, a component audit forced us to remove redundancies and consolidate approaches, which were crucial, moving forward into hi-fidelity.