Many people struggle to read their utility bill, no less track their energy usage and budget against it for the upcoming year. Being able to visualize this data in a neat and easy-to-digest format required a lot of extensive research into different interfaces that would best suit brokers and businesses. We have worked to streamline the interfaces down to just the comparable components customers need to understand their energy.
The most difficult part was visualizing data in each energy management dashboard, such as UtilityModule and EnergyAuctions. This was absolutely critical to our energy management platform. We needed to provide data visualizations that gave our users a greater understanding over their energy data, which is so vital to their operational workflow.
Improving User Experience
Let’s be honest, spreadsheets are boring and energy data is difficult to comprehend. For business owners and brokers alike, garnering insights from spreadsheets can be time-consuming and complex. Utilizing data visualizations improves the clarity of the information being presented and enables users to gain more insight into how their data can work for them.
Creating data visualizations requires fine-tuned precision to ensure that the information being presented is accurate. Accuracy is the most common request among energy management users. Ensuring this accuracy and providing data visualizations with distinct colors and graphs is essential to user satisfaction.
Uncovering New Insights
Of course, these visuals are only useful if they address our users’ needs. It’s always key to step back and evaluate how users are consuming this information and whether new visualizations or data are required to address our customers’ needs. Talking to our users and gathering feedback was incredibly helpful in uncovering new metrics that could better aid our users in the development of our energy software management tools.
Conclusions
Data is a major commodity in the energy market and data without visualizations can often be overlooked or underappreciated. By accompany data with visualizations in an easily digestible UI, you create value for customers who can use them in presentations or for a quick view of their energy standing.
