Nest & Opower Energy Monitors

This article is probably a little off topic but talks about Nest and Opower and the different approaches that they have taken in home energy efficiency product/services. This also mentions the lack of success energy monitor suppliers have had with consumers. Maybe automation is the way forward.

Follow the link to read the full article http://gigaom.com/2013/05/08/how-nest-and-opower-quietly-morphed-into-competitors/

Final Design

An overview of the final design is shown below. 

Product Development & Final Prototype

After the usability tests I developed Concept 2 and created a final prototype to show Elizabeth for feedback before I finalised the design.

Elizabeth exploring the final prototype. 

Elizabeth made the following statements about the final design prototype:

“It’s just so much more ergonomic than the original one”

“The new features are all good improvements”

“It also looks so much better, I would leave this out on the work top”

The final prototype had a number of new features to improve the users experience. 

• A stand has been included for users who want to keep the device on display; the top inner edge is chamfered for easy insertion of the device. 
• There are switches on top so that the user can select which buttons will be active, any combination is possible and this addresses the issue of variability of condition between hands and could be useful for stroke victims. 
• The screen is 30% larger than the orginal and the information is easier to read.

See Final Design blog post for full summary of the design features.

Prototype Usability Testing

I wanted to put the three concepts I had developed into the users hands to get real feedback and insights.

I set Elizabeth the task of setting the time and date on each of the three prototypes. For this I wrote a short script for her to follow which would simulate setting up the time & date on the real device.

Here is a summary video of the usability testing:

Elizabeth selected concept as the most comfortable to use for her and for people with a similar dexterity condition. This concept will be developed further.

Cultural Probe & Ideation

After the first meeting with Elizabeth I gave her the device and my camera and asked her to set up and use the device for a week. She took pictures and kept a note of anything that she found difficult, good, bad or interesting.

I used the insights I gathered from the first interview and cultural probe, along with my desk research, to create a wide range of different sketch concepts that might be usable and comfortable for people with dexterity and visual impairments. 

I showed the sketches to Elizabeth and asked her to comment on each of them about how comfortable they might be for her to use. I also asked her to select the three best concepts in terms of the design for her disability. 

I went away to developed the 3 designs and build foam prototypes for usability testing.

Empathic Research

Although I'm including users in my research and design process I decided that I needed to empathise with the user group that I'm designing for. As stated in previous blog posts the target user may have a visual or dexterity impairment. 

To experience what the user group go through when using the original device I 

• Put on a pair of short sighted glasses (I am long sighted) to simulate a severe visual impairment. 
• Had my fingers tied together with thick elastic bands to significantly reduce dexterity in my hands.  

I was disorientated immediately because of the glasses and couldn't see further than a couple of inches. 

Opening the box and trying to unpack the contents was a challenge. I had to think about every movement and action rather than doing things subconsciously. 

Setting up the equipment took a lot longer than the previous time when I did not have the simulated vision and dexterity impairments.

Setting up the time & date was very difficult and the posture I had to use to get close to the screen and to stretch my fingers was really uncomfortable. 

This was a very useful exercise for empathising with the intended user. It really helped to get into the users shoes and experience the product from their perspective. Everything was a challenge and my experience of using the product was completely compromised. Feeling how frustrating it was to use the product inspired me to create a user friendly device for people with visual and dexterity impairments.

User Interview

Using the ethnography techniques I was taught during the Human Factors course I interviewed a user participant to find out about her arthritis condition so that I could better understand how to design for people with a dexterity condition. I also presented the original energy device to her and asked her to think out loud as she got oriented with the device.

User Information

Name: Elizabeth
Age: 70
Condition: Arthritis
Occupation: Retired

Insights

• The severity of her conditions varies day to day
• Symptoms are also variable between hands
• Any thumb movement is painful on a bad day
• Her middle finger on her stronger right hand suffers from subluxations 
• Grip and precision movements are difficult
• Her touch is too heavy and not sensitive enough to use touch screen devices

Initial Device Insights

• The buttons are too small and too close together
• Chunky handles afford her the most grip
• The orientation of the buttons makes them difficult to use

Elizabeth had to stretch her thumbs to reach the buttons whilst holding the device still because it slides on the surface due to pushing away from the body. This looked very awkward and uncomfortable for her.

The Guardian Article on the Ageing Population

According to the Lords committee 50% of people born after 2007 will live beyond 100 years of age. They also predicted that from 2010 to 2030 there will be a 51% increase in people older than  65 and a 100% increase in the number of people over 85. 

We can also expect to see a 32% rise in moderate to severe disability in people over 65 which includes conditions such as arthritis and dementia - this would put a huge strain on the NHS budget and resources.

In the project context, this means significantly more people in the ageing population demographic and significantly more people within the demographic with conditions that would affect their ability to use technology such as an energy monitor to reduce costs and environmental impact.

Click link to read the full article. 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/24/britain-ageing-population-lords-inquiry

Dexterity & Visual Impairment Research

Research shows that dexterity and visual impairments would significantly affect energy monitor use and that these conditions are common in the user group for this product. An overview of the key findings from the disability research are summarised below: 

The visual impairments that could affect energy monitor use are: 

Visual acuity - the ability to see fine details e.g. fine text on an energy monitor display.

Design solution - thick letters and increased letter spacing can improve sufferers ability to read fine details or small print.

Colour perception disability - reduced ability to distinguish between different colours; red to green is most common.

Design solution - avoiding colour combinations that clash will reduce occurrence of this problem.

Contrast sensitivity - limits a persons ability to detect the difference between foreground and background colours.

Design solution - using black on white or red on white for example and avoiding bright contrasting colour combinations will reduces the effects caused by this impairment.

Dexterity conditions affect a persons ability to lift, reach, carry and manipulate objects; use fingers, hands and arms; reduce touch sensation and therefore precision. Dexterity impairments that may affect energy monitor use: 

Parkinson’s disease - affects accuracy of movement, especially precision tasks.

Design solution - large buttons well positioned can improve usability for users.

Arthritis - around 16% of the UK population have arthritis. This will increase over time due to longer life expectancies and a higher mean age.

There are many types of arthritis but the most common are osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid arthritis.

Osteoarthritis affects 8.5 million people in the UK and mainly affects people over 50 - the user group. Worn cartilage leads to contact between bones causing severe pain.

Rheumatoid is more severe. This reduces movement and can lead to deformity in affected regions.


Arthritis symptoms are:
Joint pain, soreness and stiffness
Inflammation of joints
Reduced movement and reduced strength

A summary of the design consideration for designing products for people with dexterity conditions are:

Large chunky handles with grippy materials or textured surfaces.
Large buttons, well spaced and positioned.
Non slip mats.
Suitable form and maximum contact area for gripping surfaces
Products that allow left, right and 2 handed use
Avoiding products that require actions needing both vision and dexterity.
Adding controls that require low forces and low precision to operate
Wrists position should be straight and neutral

In the extreme case eye tracking and voice recognition may be required but that is out of scope for this project for costs reasons and because people with this level of disability are a separate demographic.

Analysing the Product 2: Feedback, Visibility & Mappings

Monitor Buttons

Feedback

When a button is pressed there is no feedback to inform the user that the device has received their command. For example, a small section of the display representing the recent energy consumption changes between the previous 1, 7 or 30 days when said button is pressed, see image 10. Someone above 60 with poor eye sight might not notice this happen (I will be doing some empathic research over the coming weeks so will test this out for myself).

Image 10

If the buttons survive my product re-design I may chose to add feedback to their operation. A bleep, vibrate and, possibly, visual feedback such as the part of the display that is changing (due to a button press) flashing for several seconds. This would cover all bases assuming that some users could have poor eye sight whilst others could have poor hearing or a dexterity condition or (hopefully not) a combination of these problems.  

Visibility & Mappings

The physical buttons themselves are also not particularly well designed for the elderly. The three small buttons are positioned close together and are labelled with an upward arrow, downward arrow and 'OK' (Image 11). The designer could argue that he has used natural mappings as the upward arrow increases the hours or minutes when changing time or the tariff when adjusting the electricity cost. The OK button increases the number of days on the recent energy consumption display, I wouldn't say that is very intuitive.  

Image 11

The actual purpose or intention of a button press is not particularly visible, you have to try pressing them to find out what they do. 

To be fair to the designer the device isn't aimed at the ageing population and the instructions are OK (although not great!). But this doesn't mean a younger demographic should have to get used to the device using trial and error. 

Analysing Customer Reviews

There are plenty of online customer reviews for the EnviR energy monitor. I would guess that the users who left feedback will be outside of the ageing demographic that I'm designing for but any problems, concerns, positive comments or suggestions for improvement would be very useful and could provide valuable user insights.

Positive Feedback

"The unit is easy to install."

This echoes what Peter said during his user test (see previous blog post - User Test 1). Apart from the problem I had with the wire clamp (also mentioned in the negative feedback section below), all feedback on the instructions and setting up the equipment has been positive. I'm still not convinced that an older demographic will find it so easy! 

"...gave some great information on the display."

Again Peter also commented that some of the information on the display monitor was very useful. I'll take this with a pinch of salt until I know what information the target demographic actually want in this type of product.

Negative Feedback

"The jaw [wire clamp] is so big, you can't really put them inside a domestic dist board. A set of small individual clamps or rings, which could be strung on individual circuit wires, would allow much great control of usage." 

I had the same problem when I was setting up the equipment in my flat. The wires were fastened tightly to the wall and could not be safely pulled back. A more carefully designed clamp could be easily designed. This seems to be a recurring theme.

"Basically what was a good product is now complete rubbish due to a lack of good software. Current Cost seem to have no interest in fixing it. There are cheaper and better alternatives."

Comments about this came up frequently. Said software is installed on the users computer and detailed information can be downloaded via a supplied lead. The information can then be viewed on the computer. 

I think there are several issues here:-

1. Although my research is at an early stage, it suggests that an aging user would not want this additional information as it would be confusing (or meaningless as Peter suggested).

2. An aging user may not have a computer and would not be able to access the information if he/she wanted to.

3. If the software was desirable to the target user, it would need a full re-design if it is as unusable as the reviewers suggest - that is out of the project scope. 

After re-design, if possible, all of the important information will be visible on the display monitor. Determining what information aging users want to see will be established during the focus groups.

"The hardware works but the data on screen is of very limited use, you see the temperature (wow) and instant watts and cost (but allows only a single tariff)."

" I find the display poor, after the simplicity of the Owl where you could instantly see how much electricity you were using at that moment, I have to peer at it to interpret the figures."

Two of many negative comments about the information displayed; this is definitely one area I will be looking at improving. Rather than speculating on what information people want to see, I'll get to know the user and hopefully establish this through interviewing and user testing.

Average Customer Review

Which? (which.co.uk): 2.7/5

Amazon: 3.5/5

User Test 1

I decided to do a user test on the energy monitor that I am going to be re-designing, to better understand a typical users perspective on the product - which is very different from my own. I will use the feedback to start thinking about possible areas of improvement. Although Peter is younger than the target demographic, the user test proved invaluable and led to some useful insights which I will discuss further. 

User Profile

The Task

I asked Peter to set up the energy monitoring equipment without my help and to try using the product as he would if he had just bought it. I think the test replicates how somebody would use the product in a real world situation. However, for future user tests - especially testing of the re-design - I will set more specific tasks to try to understand how usable the product is and if the improvements have in fact improved the design. 

Setting up the Energy Monitor 

Peter set up the energy monitor without any major problems. There was, however, an ambiguity in the instructions that caused confusion. The instructions stated that whilst pairing the monitor to the transmitter, an LED on the transmitter would flash rapidly. It flashed slowly and intermittently which made Peter think he had done something wrong. After persisting with the set up, the monitor started to show a realistic energy cost per month and he assumed he had correctly set up the system.

Image 6: Reading the instructions & setting up the monitor.

Image 7: It works!

Using the Product

Initially he pointed out that he did not understand the energy reading but that the cost of energy per month is very clear and easy to understand.  

He tried turning additional appliances on to see what affect this would have on the monthly bill. After trying various televisions, lights, a kettle and a microwave he was astonished at how much extra energy was required to run these items. Although he still doesn't understand the meaning of the energy reading, he could now use the value as a reference point to gauge how much power is being used by the various appliances. As an example, putting the kettle on temporarily tripled the monthly bill, highlighting the need to only boil enough water for what is required. He can now understand when the energy consumption was high or low.

He thought the UP! feature (explained in blog post January 25th 2013) was useful to quickly  understand the impact appliances have on the energy bill.

Image 8: Initial reading before additional appliances were turned on.

Recommendations for Improvement

The middle row of readings were confusing (see image 8); on the left a bar chart comparing  the energy consumption from the last 3 days and on the right a kW/hr reading which fluctuates between the last 1, 7 and 10 days. He explained that he didn't understand what kW/hr meant (who would apart from engineers/scientists?) and that the reading was meaningless. 

Removing the middle row of readings would allow the rest of the readings to be enlarged. Considering the demographic that I am designing for, this seems like a sensible idea - even Peter had to lean forward to see the readings (image 9). 

Knowing that the device will be re-designed for an older demographic, he suggested that it might help if the buttons were larger. However, the buttons did not pose any problems to him. 

After I explained that extra sensors can be purchased to monitor individual appliances, Peter said the additional information would soon become meaningless and that he would prefer the product as it is with the above recommendations. 

I realised afterwards that if users agreed that the additional sensors were confusing and hence the feature was removed altogether from the design, the only reason for having the buttons on the display panel would be to set the time and to start pairing with the transmitter. If this is the case could the buttons be removed altogether? It seems that less information is better. If all of the important information was on the screen at once then buttons would not be required (maybe the time and pairing with could be synced via a computer). This is something I will investigate further.

Image 9: Leaning closer to read the display. 

Analysing the Product 1: Setting up the Product

Setting the Equipment Up 

I first attempted to use the product straight out of the box without looking at the instructions which according to Apple and Donald Norman et al. demonstrates good design! Moreover the demographic that the product will be re-designed for may not be able to read the instructions due to deteriorating sight, or worse loss of sight.

Turning the display on was easy enough - just a case of plugging the mains charger to the mains and the other end into the device!

Image 2

This left several parts remaining (image 3), a lead to connect the display device to a computer, a transmitter, a lead with a clamp connector attached to one end, and a selection of coloured trims for the display panel. My first assumption was that the clamp connector can be positioned around a wire measuring the current to a product and then transmitting this information to the control display. I tried this using my laptop to no success.  

Image 3 

Using the instructions, I set the rest of the equipment up. The instructions are quite clear and succinct and it was easy to set the equipment up. The clamp was in fact for connecting around a wire to measure energy  consumption, as I expected, but this only works using one of the many wires that run from the existing energy monitor. I had difficulty in finding the correct wire to connect the clamp to (I am still not sure it is the correct wire as the power consumption seems very low) and once I had there wasn't enough room to correctly fix the clamp around the wire as there wasn't quite enough slack in the cable. So the first problem that I've come across is the design of the clamp.  

Image 4

When I plugged an additional electric device into the mains an icon appeared displaying 'Up!' (Image 5) and informed me that the monthly energy cost would increase by 71p (the reading itself is not correct due to above said problem). The feature is a good idea as you can get a feel for how much different appliances affect an energy bill. However, the information is only displayed for about 30 seconds and there is no way of storing the information or keeping it on the screen for longer. If you wanted to know how much each household appliance would affect the energy cost you would have to try them out and write down the results - not so easy for someone with poor eye sight or arthritis for example.

Image 5

User Vision Visit

The class visited User Vision, a consultancy specialising in the user experience of websites, software and products,  in Edinburgh for a talk on user experience.

After the presentation I was subjected to a typical user test whilst my colleagues watched from behind a 1 way glass window!

The point of the test was to give a flavour of  how user tests are performed in a professional industry. The main insight I gained from this experience was the importance of setting specific tasks for the user to complete rather than just asking them to try using the product and asking how it feels; the conditions should replicate a real life situation such as buying a product from the clients website or trying to navigate to certain areas of the website. This will be useful over the coming weeks when I run my own user tests for my redesign of an energy monitor interface.

Project Introduction

I have been tasked with redesigning a domestic energy monitor specifically for the ageing population. This demographic are susceptible to a range of conditions, disabilities and/or psychological issues which can discourage or even prevent them from using these products to potentially reduce their energy costs and to allow greater control of utilities such as central heating.   

From a range of products I have arbitrarily selected the EnviR SmartR Monitor to analyse and re-design. My first task is to open the package and attempt to use the product straight from the box, referring to the instructions if necessary, and to record my observations, any problems encountered, positive or negative aspects and so on.