Pennsylvania (Brain) Power

This work proposes a behaviorally informed website re-design of papowerswitch.com aimed at increasing consumer selection of renewable energy suppliers, and thus decreasing fossil fuel consumption.

Comment

Inspiration

I love visual design (my background is in Cartography), and I'm very interested in how small changes in web design can change behavior. I know that there's a lot of people (myself included) who would love to use renewable energy as the source of power in their homes, but they don't know it's available, or they think most people don't use it and feel there must be a good reason for that. I want to shift that perception via visual design: making renewable energy choices more salient, and feel like the default option for PA residents, thus making them more likely to select it.

What it does

My proposed designs are all based on research in behavioral science / behavioral design. If this full web re-design were to be implemented, it would shift consumers' energy selections to be more likely to be renewable. However, it would not force this choice on anyone in any way, making it likely to be viewed as an acceptable design by policymakers and the public.

How it was built

I conducted a behavioral design audit on papowerswitch.com, focused on consumer choice of renewable energy suppliers. In my submitted infographic, I describe opportunities for improvement on the current site, and propose and describe suggested changes (a small re-design).

Challenges

I wish I had been able to speak with more people about their energy consumption, and/or have had the chance to conduct UX research with real users, but I did not have time to do so.

Accomplishments

I believe that this proposal would be easy to implement with the tools that were used to build the current site (papowerswitch.com). So long as the people in charge of the website were on board, it would be a very actionable proposal - these small changes could have a big impact.

What I learned

It's hard to fit everything you want to say on an infographic! I am more familiar with developing slide decks, but this was a fun challenge.

What's next for Pennsylvania (Brain) Power

I would be happy to work with anyone interested in implementing this or other simple web re-designs, either at papowerswitch.com or elsewhere, to encourage more renewable energy consumption.

Built With

  • canva
Share this project:

Updates