VERT
With key challenges – clear, intuitive, and user-friendly web app – and target audience – anyone who wants to compare different electricity suppliers’ offerings – in mind, the product wireframes followed by several iterations of the initial design were developed to subsequently being proceeded by a successful price platform creation which offers consumers to easily find and compare the electricity plans based on the energy consumptions.
Background story
Electricity market liberalisation is happening in the entire European Union. Lithuania initiated this process back in 2009 and is currently finalising its last steps.
Competitive electricity market - state’s decision to move away from monopoly conditions by not regulating electricity prices. The free market lets companies compete thus providing high quality service for a competitive price.
The National Energy Regulatory Council (NERC) published an invitation to a tender for electricity price comparison tool on the national public procurement platform. CCT was selected as the best fit to build and deliver the product to the market.
The portal hosts all independent electricity suppliers in Lithuania who offer fixed price plans for household consumption. Consumers will have the ability to easily find and compare the electricity plans based on their energy consumption.
NERC had 4 major requirements for a reliable software vendor who:
Could offer a cost effective solution while maintaining high quality service.
Capable to architect a solution compatible with complex plan configuration capabilities for different suppliers.
Could build a solution compatible with high traffic.
Tight deadline (60 calendar days to deliver the product).
Design process
After launching the MVP version of the product and testing real users, we kept working on product UX and feature improvements. Key product components include:
Before kicking-off the project, we were introduced to Visual Identity Guidelines and clear requirements for web app designs. It was a great starting point.The target audience for the VERT product was very broad - anyone who wants to compare different electricity suppliers offerings in the country.
Key challenge was to make the product very clear, intuitive, and user friendly for non-techies, people with disabilities and different age groups.We started with the wireframes and after several iterations we landed with initial designs.Created designs had to undergo multiple user acceptance testing to make sure that users can navigate through the system without any confusion.
Since the same electricity supplier can offer different electricity plans and for different prices, it was very important to ensure that the design allows consumers to quickly grasp the differentiators in the pricing and understand what the price consists of.
To solve this problem, we introduced the icons as key differentiating factors and the ability to expand and view the detailed price breakdown.
Final product
The platform is used by consumers and electricity providers. At the very core of the product is the calculation mechanism that needs to be compatible with the different variables that each provider has.
Consumers select their rough monthly electricity consumption and time zone (day / night consumption) to whom it is applicable. The system generates different plan estimates that suppliers offer. The customer is then able to check the price breakdowns, compare different offers and make an informed decision which plan to go for. The consumers can contact and inquiry about plans in the selected supplier’s environment.
For electricity suppliers, we created User Authentication and User Management modules.The key building block for the supplier system was Plan Configuration, compatible with different electricity suppliers. We created this data structure plan:Electricity suppliers have the ability to import and export their plans in excel format.
Technologies and tools
