HEEP Week 6: More Changes

We have started to select our best applications and refine them. The applications we have selected are the negawatts generated by HEEP rebates, top appliance comparator, power generation by source, and oil consumption. During our weekly meeting, it was mentioned that some of our applications were not user-friendly enough. Some of our applications did not include enough explanation for a consumer to understand how to interpret the data presented. This presents a problem because while the information is useful, if someone cannot understand how to interpret the data it is not useful to them.

The mock-up for the negawatt application shows the amount of negawatts generated by HEEP rebates. When creating the mock-up for the application, not enough detail was used, which made it difficult for others to understand what the purpose of the application was. Originally, the mock-up showed a pie chart without any explanation of what it represented. While this was not intended to be the final version of application, it made it difficult to understand how the application worked and what information was displayed. We refined the application by using a more descriptive pie chart and including a negawatt definition. Also, we added the amount of negawatts generated per dollar at the bottom of the application, so consumers can see what kind of return HEEP is generating for money spent. Shown below are both the original and revised mock-ups for the negawatt generation display.

Original mock-up:



Revised mock-up:



The top appliance comparator shows a comparison of the top 5 energy star models for an appliance and how they compare with respect to electricity consumption of an average non-energy star appliance. It displays how much per year a consumer would save if they bought an energy star model vs. a non-energy star model. Originally, we displayed the cost as a savings, but we found out that people are more likely to act if we put the savings in terms of money lost. So, instead of phrasing the savings as "you would save", we changed it to "you will spend an extra". This is a marketing trick that has been found to encourage people to act. The revised mock-up is shown below.



The power generation by sources application was revised to show how the projection of energy consumption will decrease due to the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. The application shows what percentage of the energy being consumed will be produced by each source. The scaling has been adjusted to be linear, so a more detailed graph is shown. Also, the barrels of oil consumed has been adjusted, so it shows the total number of barrels consumed in a year rather than a comparison to a base year. This has made both graphs more readable.

Overall, I feel that with each iteration our applications are improving. In the beginning, we were making assumptions that people would have some previous knowledge about energy concepts. Through our revisions, our applications have become more user-friendly. The information needed by a consumer for the applications to be useful is presented with the application. We hope this will allow users to see the value of our applications and use them as intended.

HEEP Week 5: Further Improvements

This week we prototyped a new application as well as made refinements to our existing applications. We now have several solid ideas for applications that we feel HEEP will like. Our initial designs were good for providing basic ideas, however, we still have many improvements to make before they are ready for distribution.

Our new application will display the amount of negawatt hours per year that are generated by HEEP rebates. A negawatt is a measure of energy that did not need to be generated due to increased energy efficiency. This is a good metric to provide to users, so they are able to see what kind of impact HEEP is having on Hawaii's power generation and energy efficiency. The information will be displayed as a numerical value as well as a pie chart showing the breakdown of each appliance's contribution. Consumers are able to use the numerical value to determine the performance of HEEP. Shown below is a mock-up of the negawatt display.



We have been working on improving the report card application. Initially, we were unsure how to evaluate HEEP's performance. We wanted to use some aspect of HEEP to assign a grade, but could not think of a meaningful metric to use. We have edited the design of the report card, so HEEP's grade is based on the amount of negawatt hours they generate through rebates. We will assign thresholds for each grade and assign HEEP a grade based on them. We feel that this is a meaningful way to grade HEEP because rebates seems to be their main connection to the public.

The calculators we designed will be revised to be more user-friendly. Initially, we assumed that users could enter a lot of data into fields of the application without many issues. However, we received suggestions that we should hide some of the fields by setting default values to them and read information from spreadsheets where possible. The less information that users need to enter the better.

I feel our weekly meetings have been very useful. During the meetings, we are able to get different point of views about our applications. This provides a good sanity check to make sure that our applications will work as intended. Everyone has their own opinions about what the best way to do things. By incorporating the best of everyone's ideas into a product, we are able to improve and refine it. Everyone has different opinions about what is the best way to accomplish a task. Hearing alternatives is a good way to improve an application because others come up with ideas that you may not think of on your own. I hope that we will continue to improve our applications in the coming weeks and have them ready for HEEP to perform an initial review.

HEEP Week 4: Back to the Drawing Board

It was back to the drawing board for our team this week. We found out that some of the applications that we created last week weren't feasible because the required data may not be available. I have to admit that I was a little frustrated because we weren't getting as much progress as I hoped. Although we had to scrap some of the applications, I think it may have been a blessing in disguise because we came up with new applications that I feel will be more useful to consumers. I am also hopeful that HEEP will be happy with the new applications we have come up with.

There has been a lack of communication between our team and HEEP for the past couple of weeks which initially made progress slow. After our meeting last week, Professor Johnson re-emphasized that we shouldn't let that stand in our way. We decided we are going to brainstorm new ideas for applications that we think HEEP will like. This has made development easier because we are less restricted. The boundaries for our project have been greatly expanded since we have taken this new approach. So far, it has been a new experience for me because we don't have many set specifications like we do for most other school projects. We have more freedom to make our own decisions and do what we feel is best.

We are still going to produce the oil price/consumption application because this still seems like it would be very useful to consumers. People can get a better idea of how oil price affects consumption and ultimately cost. Initially, the chart that we created was too cluttered and difficult to read. We have revised the chart so that it is more user-friendly.

In addition to our old applications, we have thought up three new applications. The first is a cooling degree day calculator. This calculator helps users correlate outside temperature to power usage. It takes as input the power usages for two years and a base temperature. The application then fetches the degree days for the corresponding years and calculates the amount of power used per degree day. It displays as a result the percent change in the power usage for the two years.

The second application is similar to the first cooling degree day calculator, but it uses the total amount of power generated for Oahu in a year. The total power generated is read in from user input (not sure if we might change this to a spreadsheet) for two different years. The application then queries for the cooling degree days for the corresponding years and returns similar information as the first application. This information can be interesting because users are able to see if there is a correlation between the amount of power generated and the temperature for given years. They will also be able to see the percent of change between the specified years.

The third application is an appliance calculator. I think that this is the most useful of the new applications that we created. It takes two appliances as input, possibly one energy star rated and one non-energy star rated. In general, the energy star appliances cost more than the non-energy star appliances. It then calculates the amount of time that it will take the user to break even by saving on electricity cost. This is the first version of the application and I'm pretty sure that more features will be added as the project progresses.

Overall, I am much happier with the progress we have made. I feel that we have more solid applications that are more practical and useful for consumers. I hope that HEEP will enjoy the applications that we create when we present them in our next meeting with them.

Shown below are screenshots of the prototypes for the new applications.

Cooling Degree Days Calculator (Usage):


Cooling Degree Days Calculator (Power Generation):


Appliance Calculator:

HEEP Week 3

We have started to prototype the different applications requested by HEEP. These applications include graphs representing changes in oil price, cooling degree days, and a report card for the organization's performance. Consumer's will be able to use these applications to educate themselves about different energy factors. Also, HEEP will be able to provide the public a simple, visual way to see their performance.

Our initial design of the system was more complicated than required. We weren't thinking about long-term maintainability. After discussing our design with Professor Johnson, he suggested to simplify the design as much as possible and increase the complexity only as necessary. This was a great suggestion. It actually made everyone's life easier. We changed our design so it uses Google spreadsheets to hold the data and creates the visualizations based on queries to the spreadsheets. HEEP will be able to update data by just editing a Google spreadsheet which means that training to use the system will be minimal. Also, after we are gone, the applications can be maintained without many complications.

We had some difficulty creating the applications at first because we didn't receive the required data from HEEP. We decided to procede with the construction of the applications based on best guesses of what the data will look like. It is important that the project keep moving forward even though we may need to redo much of the work. It will be a repetitive process of reviews and revisions to the applications before we are able to get it right.

Our first challenge in getting these applications working was learning the Google Visualizations API. Fortunately, Google provides a lot of documentation and code examples which made learning how to use the visualizations fairly simple. We were able to construct prototypes for the applications without many problems. Previews of our prototype applications can be found here.