Integrated Environmental Services
Helping Stirling Council monitor the energy efficiency of their building portfolio
The goal
Smarthub is a product I designed with IES and their client Stirling Council, that allows Facilities Managers to monitor the energy efficiency of their building portfolios using a complex array of IoT sensor data.
As the first designer at IES, I introduced the user-centred approach to product discovery, understanding customer and business needs and create the strategic backlog Smarthub.
Research
1. Stakeholder interviews
The user-centred approach was a new concept for both IES and Stirling Council. Interviews allowed me to learn about the needs of the building management team, and design a custom product tailored to their needs.
2. Business mapping
Lightweight personas became helpful as a medium for explaining the different roles in the council’s team, and how they might utilise the data differently.
3. Contextual enquiries
I used shadowing and behavioural interviews to learn about users’ routine habits and jobs – by shadowing staff during their everyday work. Users were asked to think aloud as they completed routine tasks. I gained a detailed understanding of our customer’s data usage and workflow.
4. Strategic backlog generation
These insights formed a backlog of 128 user stories ready for prioritisation and design.
Product vision
The product vision was designed around three themes: Dashboards for visibility of overall performance. Portfolio manager for quick and simple analysis across data channels; Rules and alerts that could notify users of any bad news.
My impact
My customer interviews and a contextual enquiries allowed IES to build empathy and validate ideas rapidly with their client - and guided our discovery towards the most valuable feature ideas.
The clients were delighted with their first introduction to the user-centred approach, it helped IES and their client forge a closer working relationship.
Stirling Council were thrilled with the product vision, and engaged with IES to form a contract.
“The insights that Peter brought back were a gold mine of information”
– Don Mclean, CEO of IES