Our team was tasked with analyzing social and technological trends on the rise resulting from the world created post-pandemic and create a product or architectural solution to that trend. Through research, we found a strong shift from oil and gas to environmental consciousness, with technology emerging in the past year that has restructured the energy sector as we know it. These advances are also paired with changing lifestyles and priorities for everyone in the world today.
These two major trends showed the most opportunity at the forefront of our development:
Our solution, Joltz, is an emerging technology application focused on turning consumers into prosumers; allowing them to generate their own energy through a pair of (piezoelectric) energy-harvesting shoes.
Our team identified three overarching categories that were producing the majority of these rising trends: emerging technologies in energy, human behavioral changes, and economical shifts. As we analyzed these sub-trends, we pinpointed which shifts had the most potential to meet society's growing needs.
We conducted interviews throughout the firm to validate our primary assumptions of what users' needs were. A primary user group identified through these interviews were users who desire to be a productive consumers, try to live active lifestyles, and want new forms of financial freedom.
This user group confirmed initial assumptions about prosumers, but research also revealed that producing one's own energy was not the only opportunity to meet users' needs. Other user problems included accessibility to affordable energy production technology, the city's energy grid is unreliable, and the time it would take a user to produce one's own energy would be too exhaustive.
Most people don't have the free time it would take to produce their own energy.
Self-sufficient energy technology, like solar panels, isn't affordable for most people.
Post-pandemic society has led to more isolation among communities; people are craving connection.
Post-pandemic society has provided a shift in thoughts towards activity; people desire to move, be outside, and be active.
There are currently no known direct competitors for this product. For its design, we chose to analyze indirect cases that exceeded in the market for blockchain systems, tennis shoes, active social interaction, and one product focusing on piezoelectric material.
Competing with friends as users generate energy
After analyzing possible future user pain points, I started laying out the user experience on paper; and took those ideas created to design the foundational digital experience.
After testing potential users, we gathered useful feedback that informed our future designs. Users required visual assistance to understand a complex new physical technology. Users wanted to be prompted when they became physically near an energy bank. Users like the option to spend their joltzcoins, but wanted more of a variety of ways to use them. Users preferred a quick option to travel back to the map from the achievements page.
Our goal for the usability studies was to allow users to explore collections, listen to an audio tour, and review a summary of the collection; while also being able to test their understanding of art within the gallery.
“I don’t understand the shoes enough to focus on all that I can do and track with the shoes”
-Participant A
"I'd like to be encouraged to walk 10,000 steps a day by the way this product is set up.”
-Participant D
We paired our user data and wireframes to create high-fidelity mockups. The primary user experience focuses on: Creating an account, understanding the blend between the physical and digital product, an interactive map, tracking your personal achievements, competing with friends, and spending the energy the user creates using joltzcoins. Our goal would be that our users would use their joltzcoins to purchase joltz, donate them, or use them to pay for everyday items like their electric bills.
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Use of color follows WGAG standards
Design takes into account the physical product experience for users with limited physical mobility
The app makes users' needs feel met throughout the overall user experience.
When designing the digital experience for Joltz. I learned that when introducing new technology, making the experience easy to use is most important. Our interviews with potential users and usability studies were crucial in discovering these flaws. Something we were able to fine-tune as we designed our final iterations
One aspect of this design that we didn't have time to address was the idea that users could partner their microgrid with the city's grid. This relationship holds tons of opportunities for self-sufficiency and helping one's own city reach new future opportunities.
Another step we weren't able to reach in a week's time, was designing how the Joltz experience could cater to large groups of activity such as whole spin classes, a group of bike riders, or even a kid's soccer game.
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