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Stakeholder-Based Environmentally-Sustainable and Economically Doable Scenarios for the Energy Transition
A consortium of four European institutions is building an approach to integrate humans into energy transition scenario design, while accurately modelling the relevant technical, economic and environmental constraints. More info here.
Overview
I joined the project as a UX Researcher, when the next phase was to conduct participatory design workshops to build an interactive web UI where experts and members of the public could participate in system design by visualising results and communicating their preferences.
My tasks
Design workshops
Prepare toolkits
Facilitate workshops
Data analysis
Team
1 Project supervisor
2 UX Researchers
Duration
12 weeks
Nov 2021 - Jan 2022
Problem
To design and conduct workshops to elicit the needs, values, and preferences of the stakeholders, based on which the interactive web UI will be designed and developed.
There would be two workshops, internal and external. The internal workshop’s participants would be the experts from the consortium of SEEDS project. And the external participants would be the actual stakeholders in Portugal's energy sector, such as government officials, policy managers, executives from energy production and distribution, etc. However, the workshop plan for both would be the same.
Solution
Phase 1 of the workshop
The first activity in the workshop should be sensitizing the participants about the topic that is being discussed. Giving a presentation would be sufficient, but to get the participants actively invested, a short activity would be more effective.
The team discussed and bounced off each other's ideas like card sorting, timeline, dairy writing, etc., and decided to go with card sorting as a sensitising activity, as it seemed to bring out the maximum benefit and fit well into the workshop schedule. The tool of choice for card sorting was provenbyusers.com, as it allowed multiple users to work concurrently, and the results were simple and comprehensible.
Along with technical words and phrases, there were cards with values such as trust, enjoyment, consent, autonomy, privacy, etc. These values were obtained from the value elicitation toolkit devised by Maarja, a design expert at Tallinn University.
Phase 2 of the workshop
I explored different methodologies we could use for the workshop, like Future-Oriented Design and Object-Oriented UX. While the methodologies were promising, they were relatively new, and I could not find any appropriate toolkit we could use for the workshop activities.
We decided to go with a simple UI co-design activity. After comparing a few tools, we chose Balsamiq for the 1st workshop, as it allowed multiple users to concurrently use the UI toolkit we prepared, discuss, and design a UI. And for the 2nd workshop, we used Miro, because Balsamiq was not very stable in the 1st workshop.
Running a pilot
The workshop itinerary was ready. All the toolkits were in place. Running a pilot is always a good way to find out little details we miss in our anticipation. So we invited 4 of our colleagues for a pilot run.
Based on the pilot, we did some restructuring of the UI toolkit. The pilot also gave us a better idea of how much time to invest in each phase of the workshop
Workshop D-Day
The project supervisor was the host of the workshops. I joined as a facilitator to assist the supervisor and the participants.
In the internal workshop, after the participants individually completed the card sorting activity, 3 teams were formed. Each team received a separate playground and the UI library. I, as a facilitator, explained the rules of the activity, overseeing the direction of the team activity, keeping account of the time remaining, and clearing the doubts of the participants.
Both internal and external workshops were conducted online using Zoom.
Workshop Data Analysis
We not only used Miro to gather results from the workshops, we also used it for project documentation. We also used the same for presentations in Zoom during the workshops, as it was easy to share the screen, scroll around, and discuss different topics without switching windows.
I explored various 2050 energy calculators, like the US, UK classic, UK modern, global calculator, and a few more.
Visualisation by the experts and stakeholders for the web UI for the Portugal 2050 energy transition.
After spending hours transcribing the workshop activities, we used the Thematic Analysis technique to find recurring themes among the participants. The related themes were then grouped and organized during the affinity mapping exercise.
Using all the data, personas were conceptualized by defining pains, goals, tasks, expectations, and frustrations.
Conclusion
Finally, after the data analyses of the workshops were completed, I co-authored a design brief that summarized all the activities performed and the data analysis that would lay the foundation for the web UI design of Portugal’s 2050 energy calculator.
1: Below expectations, 2: Slightly below expectations, 3: Satisfactory, 4: According to the expectation, 5: Above expectations
Debora, my supervisor in the project, highlighted both my strengths and areas for improvement.
My overall assessment: 4.5
[Girish] demonstrated the ability to cooperate with the team, and at the same time to manage tasks independently. He has shown, throughout the practice, a good sense of problem solving skills, and a creative mind. There's room for improvement regarding his detachment from ready-made solutions, nonetheless he demonstrated abilities for self-initiative and flexibility. He's a dependable outgoing person, and open to constructive criticism.
- Debora De Souza (Project Supervisor)
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