Nicole Brennan.

Behavioral productsCase study

Behavioral energy products.

Using behavioral science and clear data to help people use less energy at home.

Back to all work
Three high-fidelity energy portal screens in a prototyping tool: monthly energy consumption with peer comparison, historical usage, and energy saving tips
Role
Design lead and front-end engineer; lead designer, behavioral products
Clients
Utilities including Georgia Power and PSO
Channels
Print, email, desktop, and mobile
Result
35% increase in email open rates

Why it works

People save energy when they can see how they compare.

Home energy reports work through social norms: showing people how their usage compares to similar homes and to efficient ones, then giving them an easy next step. Done well, they disrupt old habits, build intrinsic motivation, and make future costs feel real. Residential energy use is more than a fifth of annual emissions, so small nudges at scale add up.

Home energy reports

  1. 01Print, rebuiltRedesigned reports for Georgia Power and PSO around clear usage data, savings potential, and specific recommendations.
  2. 02One template, thousands of reportsA dynamic base template with XMpie data integration, so every customer’s usage, savings, and tips populate automatically.
  3. 03Email as its own formatMobile first. Heavy photography was hurting deliverability in Gmail, so I simplified the design and rethought the data visualization.
  4. 04A shared design systemHeader levels, icons, color, judgment boxes, and chart standards, so print and digital feel like one brand.

Print and email

Clear comparisons, specific next steps

Each report answers the same three questions: how you compare to last year, how you compare to similar homes, and what you can do about it this month.

A Georgia Power business energy report: a three-month summary, usage compared to last year, weather impact, and energy-saving tips
Georgia Power.
A PSO home energy report: home comparison bars, comparison to last year, rewards, and best practices for saving energy
PSO.
Email report modules: compared to last year, compared to similar homes, comparison over time, a quick fix tip, and an energy rewards module
The email report, module by module.

Energy portal

A portal people would come back to

The energy portal had to match competitors’ core features and then give people a reason to return. I wireframed social features like community challenges and rewarded tasks, then built high-fidelity prototypes that used color and interactive charts where competitors used white space and tables.

I also set the research questions: what people try to click that isn’t clickable, whether they trust peer comparisons, whether calendar months or billing cycles make more sense, and whether there’s enough value to come back.

An energy portal wireframe with peer comparison charts, a 13-month comparison, a heating and cooling pie chart, tips, and a utility promotion area
Wireframe.
The high-fidelity dashboard: monthly consumption compared with average and efficient homes, cooling share, an energy fact, a savings tip, and a smart power strip explainer
High-fidelity dashboard.

Make the next step obvious.

What changed

The redesigned email reports raised open rates by 35%, and print and digital finally looked and felt like one product. The dynamic template let utilities personalize reports for thousands of customers without hand-building each one.

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