
Role
UX/UI Designer


Edgeli
Designing the first iteration of their B2B SaaS product.
Timeframe
4 weeks
Introduction
Edgeli is looking to decarbonize the energy grid by 2050. More than 60% of the US energy system used today is through direct fuel use such as fossil fuels. Edgeli’s mission is to help expedite the interconnection of energy projects such as solar panels and wind turbines to the electrical grid without compromising the energy grid's efficiency and reliability.

The Problem
There are project developers who have limited visibility into the very complex energy grid of their area. Edgeli is looking to create a platform where project developers and utilities can collaborate and speed the process of connecting energy distribution projects onto the grid.
The platform of Edgeli will need to allow utilities to publish and share distribution system data for developers to visualize and analyze. The platform needs a way to store portfolios of DER projects including location, generation, storage, and demand response characteristics.
The Design Process
I began by looking at the sketches provided for us and performing a UX review of looking at each page and making sure they are intuitive and user-friendly.
One of the big pain-point I suspected within the UX was a surplus of information on one page, potentially overwhelming the user. It's important to put information the user needs to know before including unnecessary detail that can be strategically placed on different pages to keep the user experience positive.

The Design Process cont.
We began translating the sketches onto Figma, our goal was to take our client's concerns and ideas and bring them to life through our UX advice and full reign on the UI. The goal is accomplished as we use fundamental principles of design to create this first iteration, creating a navigation system that made sense and creating a user interface that was intuitive, modern, and efficient for its users.


Introduction
Edgeli is looking to decarbonize the energy grid by 2050. More than 60% of the US energy system used today is through direct fuel use such as fossil fuels. Edgeli’s mission is to help expedite the interconnection of energy projects such as solar panels and wind turbines to the electrical grid without compromising the energy grid's efficiency and reliability.

The Problem
There are project developers who have limited visibility into the complex energy grid of their area. Edgeli is looking to create a platform where project developers and utilities can collaborate and speed the process of connecting energy distribution projects onto the grid.
The platform of Edgeli will need to allow utilities to publish and share distribution system data for developers to visualize and analyze. The platform needs a way to store portfolios of DER projects including location, generation, storage, and demand response characteristics.
The Design Process
I began by looking at the sketches provided for us and performing a UX review of looking at each page and making sure they are intuitive and user-friendly.
One of the big pain-point I suspected within the UX was a surplus of information on one page, potentially overwhelming the user. It's important to put information the user needs to know before including unnecessary detail that can be strategically placed on different pages to keep the user experience positive.

The Design Process cont.
We began translating the sketches onto Figma, our goal was to take our client's concerns and ideas and bring them to life through our UX advice and full reign of the UI. The goal is accomplished as we use fundamental principles of design to create this first iteration, creating a navigation system that made sense and creating a user interface that was intuitive, modern, and efficient for its users.


Keep it Simple
This is the first screen a user will see when signing up for Edgeli, they will be able to document a project they would like to incorporate into the energy grid. When looking into project technologies, the user can add extra technologies per project. This results in giving project technologies their own page, if users input multiple technologies, it would be quick to scan through a page dedicated to project technologies. Originally, this was one long form, I broke it down into two parts, the more questions on a screen can discourage a user especially when being introduced to the product.
Designing the Dashboard
The home page for Edgeli had to include a preview of each project listed and its features. The features that were required were a line graph of project energy consumption per month, Pie charts compartmentalizing the features of all projects, a map to include locations of each project, and a list view of projects and collections of projects (i.e portfolios). I made sure to ask which features were most important for users to see right away, from there we planned accordingly to create visual emphasis on certain panels.

Below are screens detailing the rest of the user flow.




Next Steps
For future iterations of this project, we plan on collecting feedback from users and product managers. Creating a working prototype and giving users tasks to complete would be a great way to understand the intuitiveness of our product and determine where major pain points are that need to be edited later down the line.