Elblox
Alternative marketplace for renewable energy
Elblox is a small startup created by AXPO - international leader in energy trading - whose goal was to create an alternative marketplace for renewable energy. Using blockchain technology this platform would have regional energy suppliers without a middleman.
Giving life to a business idea
My task as a designer was to create a PoC to speak for their business idea. Together with a team of developers and researchers I came up with an online identity, landing page and web platform in a period of five weeks.
Planing together with the client
First we conducted a kick-off workshop to define personas, use-cases and scope. Together we came up with user-flows and business requirements as a starting point to design the prototype.
Prioritize user-flows
Elblox main point was to allow regional people that produce energy to sell their energy within their region without a need of a third person. Thus, there were two important user-flows to consider as main ones.
User flow 1: A producer wants to sell energy through elblox.
Design solution: built a producer’s pool with all the energy producers, respective information and location on the map. On a more detailed view, the producer could personalize their product by presenting himself, his resources and even up-sell other farm products (milk, meat, etc).
Visualization of producers pool and producers detail page.
User-flow 2: A consumer wants to buy energy from a producer.
Design solution: The buyer would be able to browse through all the producers, choose which type of energy he wants to buy from and calculate how much of this energy he would like to buy. This can be done either from the producers pool or the detail of a producer. All happens in real time at the shopping cart.
Visualization of how to choose and buy energy.
Design <> Development
This being a short project, allowed the development phase to start almost at the same time as the design one. I worked closely together with the developers, by designing in the browser and trying out different solutions for both use cases.
Online identity and landing page
Parallel to the development of the application I also developed an online identity, based on the most important key aspects of elblox business. A small microsite was also designed to inform about the business idea, partners and organization.
The logo of elblox represents blockchain, energy and connection through the dots that compose the logo.
Moodboard for the elblox brand.
Facts of success
Elblox will works together with Wuppertal and WSW in Germany to test their product for a year. New optimizations and user tests will be made in 2017 in order to get it ready to be used by producers and consumers in 2018.
“This project showed me that it’s possible to ideate and create a successful PoC in such a short period of time. Developing concepts in the browser together with the developers was the most challenging and enriching experience.”