Smart Device Setup and Data Visualization Dashboard

Background

Verdigris, a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup, is a B2B artificial-intelligence-enabled energy management platform for commercial properties with customers including the Grand Hyatt, Intercontinental Hotels, and The W Hotel San Francisco.

I was brought in to tackle several design challenges. The first was to rethink the end to end onboarding flow—starting with the hardware shipment, hardware device’s configuration, installation, set up, and troubleshooting process. This process is highly technical and involves customers such as electricians and property managers who are highly knowledgeable on electrical panels and circuits.

The second design challenge was to rethink the data visualization tools to improve usability and address new use cases without reducing power.

The third design challenge was to build out a new whole feature, powered by AI, within the data visualization dashboard.

Qualitative analysis

The interview participants were selected through a set of survey questions that self selected for those who would be directly involved in the installation of the Verdigris hardware device.

Iterative design process

The user interviews fed into the designs that were iteratively done. Specific team members were asked to provide feedback on specific design aspects, depending on the need in the specific iteration. Most of these design collaborations were done remotely through InVision.

Data visualization dashboard

The starting point for designing the data visualization dashboard was first leading the teams within Verdigris to define the highly technical use cases and ranking them based on importance.

In order to not be hindered by the legacy dashboard, I created user flows without being constrained by technological capability. The designs went through several rounds of iterations with the teams at Verdigris, and were then scaled back through discussions with the development team and AI team to meet the technological constraints. A key consideration within the data visualization dashboard were findings that came out of the customer interviews, such as anomaly detection.

Hardware IoT setup and on-boarding

I started off the contract with an onsite design sprint involving key stakeholders from within Verdigris. This was followed by conducting on-going user interviews with electricians, property managers and other highly specialized skill sets that fit the target demographic.

This empowered me to rethink the whole hardware set up and on-boarding, including the form factors, leading to iterations of user flows that eliminated numerous steps, increased simplicity and aimed to eliminate the need for the installation instruction manual. This was finalized with mockups and acceptance criteria ending up top priority in the development sprint.

Hardware setup troubleshooting and diagnosis

This design task involved identifying the setup issues that result in customers contacting Verdigris technical support. It also involved identifying solutions listed in the instruction manual of the hardware device and giving users that information at the right time, in a more user-friendly, step-by-step manner.