CurrentFlow - EV Charging
Contributions:
User Experience
UI Design
About the Project
Disclaimer
Because of non-disclosure agreements, I cannot go into full detail about this project online.
Feel free to contact me to learn more and chat.
The CurrentFlow application was designed for an intelligent power grid company to help gain insights and visibility into interconnected assets/equipment. The team designed and developed the application from start to finish.
Overall, the application delves into many aspects of the power grid, but for demonstrational purposes, I’ve shown a focus on EV charging. From an operational standpoint, monitoring equipment and load impact on the grid was the main focus for the client. This needed to be shown in a familiar yet modernized way that would be useful for individuals who normally have to check equipment in person.
With analytics, EV session logging, scenario comparisons for completed sessions, and security monitoring users would have full access to their EV charging network.
Main focuses from a UX standpoint:
Research & Planning: Understand power grid and asset interconnection to provide accurate visualizations. We also needed to plan & establish valuable views for users taking into account current available data and pain points.
Design: Balance the complexity of information and user needs for the final designed screens (dashboard, network view, camera module, and EV session mapping). After designs were completed the team would meet with client subject matter experts to confirm the accuracy and feasibility of designs alongside the development team.
Research & Planning
When joining this project, research was required to understand the power grid and assets involved with EV charging. This information helped inform what would be important to show for users monitoring electric load and equipment.
Provide useful and actionable information to the user - not creating the “beautiful, wrong thing.”
Gathered involved equipment and information that comes off of asset sensors.
Uncover main use cases & personas.
Plan out front-end application architecture.
Layout user and informational flows that would help inform content within the application.
General Power Flow Diagram
Mapping to get an idea of power flow from beginning to end helped inform connection points and important analytics to show.
EV Session Steps/Equipment
Mapping steps and entities of the beginning to end flow a user and the system would take to monitor anomalies and improvements for power usage.
Application Content
Given the required modules, we began to map out where content would live within the application. We also had to take into account scalability for future additions.
General Alert/Monitoring Flow
Once we established what the application would contain, we mapped out a general flow of a user viewing an alert. This would also inform which modules would be key to this flow.
Key Persona
We established multiple personas including admin roles and maintenance workers but decided to focus on users that would be frequenting the application for monitoring purposes.
Design
Once the research and planning phases were completed, it was time to tackle the design to be handed over to development.
Four modules were the main focus:
Overview Dashboard: Here users can view all of their assets as well as analytics coming off of related sensors. Focusing on providing information to users at a glance, only the most important information is showcased here with the ability to drill into individual assets.
Logistics: involves scenario comparison for EV charging sessions. Each step of a session is logged - with this information, users can compare historical or hypothetical sessions to arrive at the best course of action for maintaining equipment and a resilient power grid.
Sessions: This module shows current and historical EV charging sessions with details such as duration, chosen charge speed, energy delivery, and interactive information like how long a customer was idle after charging.
Camera: For security and monitoring purposes, the camera module shows users the most recent screenshot as well as a timeline of images and events. Most recent activity is displayed in the forefront to show real-time information about charging sessions.
Overview Dashboard
Session Logs/Monitoring
Session Scenario Comparison
Security Camera
Outcomes
Long-term project spanning from 2021 to present - continuous integration and delivery cycle.
Providing visibility into equipment and power grid to maintain systems and resilience.
Figma prototypes and designs delivered for demo and implementation across many sectors of the energy industry.
Integrated application with information from multiple streams all in one location.