Utility Website Feature Design Guides

Improving residential utility websites through research-backed feature design, usability insights, and actionable recommendations.

Overview

E Source has a mission is to help utilities make and implement better data-driven decisions that positively impact their customers, their bottom line, and the planet.

Project Snapshot

‍Role: CX & UX Research Analyst, E Source

‍Project Type: UX research, design evaluation, and website feature benchmarking

I led a series of design guides analyzing key utility website features. The project evaluated 93 utility websites across desktop and mobile, identifying usability gaps, top-performing examples, and actionable design recommendations.

Features evaluated:

  1. Energy Efficiency
  2. My Energy Use
  3. Online Bill Viewing
  4. Outages or Emergencies
  5. Payment and Billing Options

Outcome:

  • Comprehensive design guides for each feature
  • Evidence-based recommendations for improving findability, functionality, content clarity, and visual design
  • Benchmarking metrics to inform future UX and digital experience improvements

The Approach

1. Task-Based Usability Research

  • Customers completed real-world tasks on each website feature
  • Metrics collected: success rate, time to find, navigation complexity, accessibility, readability

2. Feature-Specific Design Advice

  • Energy Efficiency: Clear homepage links, concise navigation, online enrollment, rebate tracking
  • My Energy Use: First-page visibility, energy usage graphs, comparison to peers, goal-setting tools
  • Online Bill Viewing: Minimal clicks to view current bill, PDF/HTML access, usage graphs, mobile-friendly layout
  • Outages or Emergencies: Mobile-first, multiple reporting channels (online, phone, text), interactive outage maps, alerts without login
  • Payment and Billing Options: Clear listing of payment methods, recurring payments, mobile and digital payment options, interactive maps for walk-in centers

3. Benchmarking & Best Practices

  • Annotated screenshots of top-performing utilities for each feature
  • Adoption metrics of recommended practices (e.g., 91% allow energy usage analysis, 64% allow outage updates without login)
Benchmarking of five key utility website features shows high availability across sites, variable compliance with best-practice criteria, and usability scores ranging from 61 to 81, with accessibility adoption remaining low.

The Solution

‍Deliverables

Impact & Value

  • Simplified customer interactions with critical website features
  • Increased self-service adoption for energy programs, billing, and outage reporting
  • Improved mobile experience and accessibility compliance
  • Provided actionable design recommendations for utility digital teams

Key Skills Demonstrated

  • Task-based usability testing and benchmarking
  • Feature-specific UX and content strategy
  • Visual and interaction design evaluation
  • Mobile-first and accessibility-focused design recommendations
  • Translation of quantitative and qualitative research into actionable guidance