OVO Energy
Energy Plans
Background
Timeline
3 months
Nov 2020 - Jan 2021
Role
Led end-to-end design, from research to UI implementation.
Overview
Opportunity
Problem
The energy plans page, a key step in the signup process, faced a 55% customer drop-off and misalignment with rebranding, affecting clarity and potential conversions.
Goals
Increase the conversion rate of new OVO signups.
Align with OVO's new brand identity guidelines.
That's a 9.4% conversion boost!
Outcomes
Increased customer confidence and conversions, generating £1.4k in sales and £300k in lifetime value—key milestones for OVO's growth goals.
Process
Uncovering Insights from Existing Research
Customer Pain Points Uncovered
I conducted usability research and created a journey map from a previous project to highlight customer pain points in the sign-up process.
Issues like unclear energy plan details and confusing names informed the redesign, focusing on clear language to improve the user experience.
Analysed Content
I analysed the current UI content structure to identify if there were any improvements on the hierarchy of placement.
By organising content into a simple hierarchy and prioritising what customers care about most, I was able to see how this information could stack effectively on mobile screens.
Explored and Tested Ideas
Mobile First for Content
After reviewing the content, I collaborated with a teammate to sketch ideas guided by the opportunity statement. The content hierarchy exercise helped the mobile-first approach to sketching. Once we developed initial concepts, I shared the designs with the product development and branding teams for feedback.
Testing Ideas with Users
After sketching multiple designs, I narrowed them down to four refined concepts and tested them by asking:
Can customers explain the plan types?
Do they understand the differences?
I conducted usability studies with participants exploring energy providers, using a scoring system to evaluate which design elements performed best.
Challenge
I worked with the Branding team to align on updated guidelines, including shapes, colors, and tone of voice for OVO's web pages. Usability testing revealed confusion around approved microcopy for the plans page, prompting adjustments to improve clarity.
What I Learned
I learned that data makes a great point. I refined key microcopy to better resonate with customers and re-tested it within the designs, resulting in a higher understandability rate. I shared these findings with the team, which contributed to improvements in their guidelines.
New Designs Ready for Release
A First Look at the New UI
I combined the highest-scoring elements from each design into a single refined concept, ready for A/B testing. The copy and branding were signed off and the team came together and revisited the hypotheses we drafted earlier on.
Hypothesis
We believe that if we lay out the plans with prioritised content in a card format, buying customers will comprehend the plans more easily than the current table layout. We will run an A/B test with the original design and the variant. We'll know the hypothesis is valid when we increase the signup conversion rate by ~10%.
The as-is energy plans page
…and the updated page
The Outcome