Elexon
Designing a public-facing dashboard that transforms complex data into simple and clear information, helping people build greener energy habits with confidence.
TEAM:
1 x Design Principle
1 x Developer Lead
2 x UX Designers (me)
5 x Developers
CLIENT:
Softwire
(For Elexon)
TIME:
12 Weeks
MY ROLE:
UX Research, Ideation, Product Strategy, Workshop Facilitation, Usability Testing & Iteration, UI, Wireframing & Prototyping, Accessibility Advocacy, Cross-Functional Collaboration
“We’ve been really pleased with the quality of the content, backed by solid research. We cannot wait to put these ideas into production”
- Elexon Stakeholder
Key Designs at a glance
Take action now or wait
Elexon's world is technical, data-heavy, industry-facing, but we were designing for the everyday user, who prioritises their time elsewhere.
How can we bring these two worlds together?
Build knowledge
If someone wants to learn more about emissions and the energy grid, they can dive into the simplified data graphs.
Build new habits
Information about appliance-related emissions can empower people to adjust when they use their devices.
The Full Story
Project Goal
Make Elexon’s energy data accessible to the general public and support the UK’s progress toward Net Zero.
The Challenge
Translate technical, industry-facing data into a simple, engaging dashboard
Preserve data accuracy and maintain Elexon’s neutrality.
Empower users to make greener choices without oversimplifying or influencing behaviour.
Solution
Clear, guided experience instead of a traditional dashboard
Behaviour motivating features, such as regional comparisons and actionable tips
Assumptions mapping
What do we know
Assumption mapping helped identify our highest-risk unknowns and shaped a focused research plan, guiding user research and stakeholder interviews.
Stakeholder Interviews
Identifying business needs & key priorities
The assumption map shaped our discussion guides and focused our three stakeholder meetings (with product, strategy, and marketing). These conversations revealed a complex mix of needs and considerations for the design.
Create opportunities for visibility and publicity
Empower people to make greener energy decisions
Align with Elexon’s own sustainability goals
Showcase Elexon’s contribution to Net Zero
“I try to reduce my energy usage when I have the headspace for it”
57% of respondents
Understanding
Our Target User
The goal was to understand the following:
Daily routines
Attitudes to climate & household energy use
Motivators and barriers to behaviour change
How people interpret unfamiliar data
What would help them act differently
Surveys
I designed a screener survey, which 70 participants completed. It revealed some interesting trends about the level of understanding and capacity for taking action.
Interviews
Together with my co-designer, we interviewed eight people (I led four and took notes on the other four).
We recruited participants across the demographic (eg. age groups, household composition and housing status) to make sure we captured a wide range of perspectives.
Affinity Map
Synthesising user insights
The affinity map revealed key user concerns and helped us sharpen the design direction with a focused How Might We statement.
How might we present relevant information the the everyday person that aligns with their motivations and reduce barriers to change, so that they feel able to adopt sustainable energy habits?
Use Insights
The affinity map helped identify these common needs, which gave us a clear, grounded focus for every design decision going forward.
Clarity at a glance
Information must be understandable without effort.
“I have all this data on Smart meter, but it’s so hard to sift through it”
Personal relevance
Progress tracking and comparisons increased motivation.
“I'd want information to be tailored to me so I could change my behaviour compared to my usage”
Actionability
Users wanted to be told what to do, not left to interpret graphs
“I wish it just told me what to do, like a daily nudge I get from my my fitness app”
Convenience
Behaviour change had to fit seamlessly into existing routines
“I don't take action because I am busy day to day, I value convenience”
Personas
User research showed that motivation was nearly evenly split between saving money (46%) and helping the environment (48%).
I created two personas to capture these distinct entry points and motivations for engaging with energy information.
GOALS
Reduce monthly energy bills.
Make quick, easy decisions about energy use.
Doesn’t want it to interfere with her life and activities.
FRUSTRATIONS & PAIN POINTS
Technical energy data feels overwhelming or irrelevant.
Limited time to dig into context or background.
Needs clear direction on what to do now
Kaylah, Money motivated
Name: Kaylah
Age: Early 30s
Occupation: Retail Manager
Housing Type: Renter
Tech Comfort: High
Primary Drive: Save money
Energy Knowledge : Low
“I think you have to live your life, I cannot live according to a rigid schedule, or when I use dishwasher”
Helen, Eco-conscious
Name: Helen
Age: Late 50s
Occupation: Medical Auditor
Housing Type: Homeowner
Tech Comfort: Medium
Primary Drive: Environmental
Energy Knowledge : Moderate
GOALS
Track energy usage regularly.
Make decisions that both reduce carbon and fit daily life
FRUSTRATIONS & PAIN POINTS
Complex graphs without relatable context.
Technical language that feels intimidating.
Vague, generic suggestions that are hard to adopt
“I feel responsible for what world I’ll leave for my kids, but the government needs to do more so it’s easier for people to make changes"Our research revealed a clear insight:
Our users, Kaylah and Helen, didn’t need a deep dive into data; they needed clear explanations of CO₂ and green energy variation, along with practical tips they could apply in their daily lives.
This shifted our direction from a complex dashboard to a guided, narrative driven experience that:
Ideation
Defining The Opportunity
01.
Research Showed:
Most users didn’t know when greener times were.
Design Solution:
Prioritise showing the best times to use appliances in plain language.
02.
Research Showed:
“Money-savers” and “eco-motivated” users needed different hooks.
Design Solution:
Design for both financial savings and carbon savings.
03.
Research Showed:
Behaviour change happens only when mental load is low.
Design Solution:
Create glanceable, lightweight interactions over complex deep dives.
Design Direction
Rapid Ideation Session
I led a rapid ideation session together with our 5 devs. This was a chance to bring fresh perspectives to the table and validate ideas.
HMW statements and a simplified proto-persona (“imagine your grandpa wants to charge his EV”) helped the team stay user-focused and design for a real person rather than personal assumptions.
How might we …
make energy data simple and clear so users know exactly what actions to take daily?
make energy data personal and relatable so users clearly see its impact on them?
Show users how energy choices influence their costs?
help users feel that they are improving the state of environment?
Ideas We Pursued Further
Use real-world comparisons to make CO₂ impact easy to grasp, helping users see how simple changes (like charging their EV during cleaner periods) can reduce emissions
Show the next “green windows”, so users don’t have to interpret data, but can simply choose the best time to run energy-intensive activities.
Show how choosing cleaner times or eco settings can add up to real savings over days, months or years to appeal to money-savvy users.
To create a design that could truly work, I regularly revisited Elexon’s business needs and constraints. Balancing user needs with Elexon’s organisational responsibilities and long-term goals was key to the project’s success.
This shaped how the team prioritised features and made thoughtful trade-offs along the way.
Keeping Business Constraints in Mind
Maintaining Elexon’s neutrality.
The design had to encourage action without persuading or taking a stance, remaining neutral while still motivating change.
Protecting Elexon’s data integrity.
We need to simplify complex data for users without distorting it or misleading users.
Constraints of a desktop-only design.
Research showed that everyday users typically check this information on their phones, making a desktop-only experience harder to reach them.
Embedding within Elexon’s industry-focused site.
This meant keeping everything to a single page. Thus limiting content and a risk that everyday users would get lost.
Finding What Holds Up:
Rapid Concept Refinement
Close collaboration with developers helped us catch issues early and stay within technical constraints.
I proposed an early testing at this point to make sure we are going in the right direction.
Early Testing
We tested low-fi designs informally with colleagues in the office, which revealed that a dashboard format left too much confusion; testers didn’t know where to start.
We needed to rethink our approach.
Designing A Guided Experience
We made a decision to move away from a traditional dashboard and offer a more guided experience through the page that added layers of context and information.
I proposed a hands-on method to work out the new structure (borrowed from my choreography work), printing and rearranging UI components like puzzle pieces to quickly visualise the user journey.
This exercise allowed my co-designer and me step into the users’ perspective and it helped us create a clearer, more layered user flow.
With a strong personal interest in inclusive design, I advocated for accessibility checks. I tested the designs with a colour-blindness simulator, highlighted areas where visual cues needed strengthening and pushed for a data table that would be readable by screen readers.
Stakeholders responded positively and expressed interest in reviewing accessibility across their wider product.
Championing Accessibility
2 further rounds of usability testing (6 and 4 users respectively) showed that while users were engaged by the idea, they struggled with cognitive load, missing context and technical language, which affected trust and confidence.
Most improvements came from small, thoughtful changes, not dramatic redesign: adding more guiding through the page, reframing data, simplifying the language and bringing back just enough context to support understanding.
Iterations
Usability Testing
1. Cognitive Load is Too High
BEFORE
Testing revealed confusion with the appliance cards
users struggled to grasp the context at first glance
the bottom navigation was unexpected
"I am having to think hard about this and work it all out for myself" - Participant 3
AFTER
• Added additional text to improve clarity and reduce frustration.
• Introduced a ‘see our workings’ dropdown to build credibility and trust.
• Internal A/B testing confirmed that our changes improved clarity.
2. Lack Of Context Left Testers Confused
"I am a little confused, am I looking at personal smart meter information or some general examples?" - Participant 5BEFORE
User testing showed that our early “simple” layouts were too stripped back, leaving people unsure what they were looking at.
AFTER
In response, we added clear guidance and layered context using expandable sections and hover states so users could get the detail they needed without being overwhelmed.
3. Language Still Felt Too Technical
"Emissions are high... is that to do with my car?"
- Participant 3
"Carbon intensity forecast... what does that mean?"
- Participant 1We overlooked that our personal knowledge grew during the project, and the terminology that made sense to us was too technical for the users, leaving them confused.
We simplified the wording further into clear, everyday language so it felt more accessible and easier to understand.
Emissions are high
Electricity is less clean
Carbon Intensity forcast
When electricity is cleanest
Energy Grid
Electricity delivered to your home
AFTER
BEFORE
We wanted to avoid motivating users through guilt, so we adjusted the tone to be more supportive and encouraging. This meant replacing judgmental language like “dirty” with more neutral phrasing such as “less clean.”
Final Designs
Take action now or wait
If someone wants to charge their EV, they can quickly see whether their region is currently high-emission and decide whether to wait for a cleaner time. This allows immediate decision making without overwhelm.
Understand the impact of the changes you make
Information about appliance-related emissions can empower people to adjust when they use their devices. Making the impact of CO2 emissions easy to understand is key in people relating to it and wanting to take action.
Your energy set up can save money
Using cleaner energy can also lead to cost savings, showing how to do this can help motivate habit change.To maintain Elexon’s neutrality and trust, we focused on providing clear information users lacked, rather than directing them toward specific products or providers.
The data behind the insights
To support different learning styles, the dashboard includes simplified graphs explaining UK CO₂ emissions and the energy mix, using plain language and clear colour coding. These visuals allow a deeper dive while showcasing Elexon’s data credibility.
Outcomes
Built trust through transparency
Regional data, plain language, and visible data gaps helped users feel informed rather than misled.
Unlocked potential for a new audience
Demonstrated how industry data can be repackaged to support consumer engagement, sustainability storytelling, and future marketing visibility.
Made complex energy data understandable
Users with no prior knowledge could interpret emissions, regional trends, and timing at a glance.
Built trust through transparency
Regional data, plain language, and visible data gaps helped users feel informed rather than misled.
Measuring Success
User Understanding & Confidence
Use in-product surveys to measure how well users understand terms like “clean vs less clean,” what CO₂ means, and how confident they feel about changing their energy behaviour.
Behavior Change
Use follow-up interviews and short diary studies to track behaviour change, such as whether users wait for green windows or adjust their routines, to understand how the product fits into everyday life.
Engagement & Retention.
Evaluate engagement and retention by tracking time spent on the page, use of expandable explanations and tooltips, and repeat visits over time.
Let’s chat about your project.
If you’re working through a problem or shaping something new, I’d love to talk.