Although there are multiple platforms around the globe providing reliable and up-to-date data, there is not a dedicated platform that consolidates EU-wide information on the topics of climate and energy, and makes them widely available for a variety of users, while precisely adapting to their needs and behaviors.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) wanted to change the game and transform the way people across Europe, from researchers to journalists to engaged citizens, consume valuable climate and energy data.
On this project, we followed a classic design thinking process. We first started with a kickoff in Copenhagen, attended by our Lead UX Designer and project manager. We then conducted an in-depth research with more than 500 survey respondents and 30 interviews. Thank to this research, we extracted four personas. It helped us to ideate many concepts and select one to prototype. Finally, we have been testing and iterating the clickable prototype with end users.
The domains of climate and energy data is tough to get into. As designers, we did not want to make the assumption that we simply needed to make a nice-looking tool that followed standard usability principles. We dove deep into how people use similar tools in their working environments, so that we completely understand the domain.
Our very first step was to run a survey that would introduce us into the domain. Our goal was to gather an initial understanding of our potential audience. (i.e frustrations, information needs and interest, content format and so on). Around 500 people participated. The survey was also a key point for recruitment. Over half of the participants in interviews and testing came from the survey. We used Survey Monkey in order to add logic and filter unnecessary questions. We analysed the data in a google sheet, and we created pivot tables to understand the patterns and highlight different user segments.
We conducted over 30 remote interviews with journalists, scientists, policy makers, teachers, students and the list goes on. Participants joined in remotely from Europe, Asia and America. Our main research goal was to understand how different people explore Climate and Energy data, their motivations and how they use such data in their work, studies on daily life. Each interview had two parts, the first where we talked about their previous experiences; and the second where we conducted a short testing on the data platform that they use the most often.
As I mentioned before, there are a lot of tools used by scientist and journalist to explore climate and energy data. We found out during the interview that people were used to certain patterns, so we needed to compare all the tools available. We reviewed more than 30 competitors. We mapped them into a gigantic google sheet, and we then created a finding brief with the most interesting data. As you can see in the image below, we also created a feature analysis, that allowed us to map the key features of the data platforms.
The exploratory research resulted in 4 personas.