Designing an app to help teach kids energy awareness

Table of Contents

  1. In summary
  2. Conducting research on energy consumption
  3. Ideating and resolving research
  4. Bringing character through co-creation
  5. Refining and developing through Figma

In summary

As part of my undergraduate degree, I under took a design research and develop project to reduce energy consumption in the home. I performed primary and secondary research, as well as concept, ideation and development of a figma prototype for an application.

Conducting research on energy consumption

I began this project working with Tara Savage to research how people interact with appliances in the home and how it effects energy consumption. Together we developed a series of interviews and observational studies to better understand people's habits and how much they knew about appliances. We crucially found that the majority of people lacked an awareness of how much energy their appliances used.

The four archetypes of energy consumers in the home. The Chief, who controls heating controls and energy bills. The Knower, who knows a lot about energy consumption but is rare in a house. The Clueless, who don't care about energy. The Rebel, who rebels against the Chief and controls the heating for example.
The core archetypes we found of energy consumers in the home.

Ideating and resolving research

From our research, we explored a large number of possible interventions for the problem. We then grouped each idea together to form general types of intervention before choosing which we felt were best suited for a solution. I decided that education would be the most effective method of resolving a general lack of energy awareness.

A storyboard for a conceptual solution. It involves a parent giving a child their phone with an augmented reality game on it that scans appliances and provides visual feedback for how intensive their energy consumption is, providing parents with data on their home's consumption.
A storyboard of the initial energy critters concept.

Evaluating with the audience

I chose to explore using augmented reality to teach children about how much energy different appliances use. Through paper prototypes I evaluated and iterated on the concept, working with both peers and the target demographic to better understand how to successfully engage and educate the user.

Bringing character through co-creation

I did a number of co-creation workshops to bring the titular energy critters to life. With the first workshop, I worked with children to create interesting characters for a number of appliances. Following that, I worked with animation students to develop the characters further using Play-Doh to give them friendly forms.

Refining and developing through Figma

I took the research and conceptualisation and spun it into a polished Figma prototype to communicate the idea's functionality and potential. This involved much research into designing user interfaces for children as well as game design to better define how the AR experience would function. I refined the experience through the prototype, adding details such as animated buttons and engaging motion from UI elements.

Energy Critters Figma Prototype A hero image. A child uses a phone. Graphics are popping out of the phone representing a typical question a kid might encounter using energy critters.