Education Center Interactive Touch Screen
Energy Story
Client: National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly NREL) and the Alliance for Energy Innovation
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) campus serves as a proving ground for renewable energy technologies, efficiency strategies, and environmental impact reduction.
To bring this story to life, we developed an interactive 70-inch touchscreen display for visitors and NREL tour guides to explore energy innovations across the laboratory.
Results
The display was used daily by NREL tour guides and featured prominently during high-profile visits.
It helped translate NREL’s technical work into accessible, engaging stories, empowering visitors to understand the lab’s innovations and how they apply to the real world.
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The electrical and thermal energy on the campus was displayed in balls traveling through the campus. The balls changed in size to match the data coming in around the campus.
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My Contributions
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Co-Designed User Experience and Interface
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Assisted with Project Management
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Conducted a benchmarking study
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Led the interface design Scrum
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Kept the team aligned and on schedule
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Authored content for several interactive display pages
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Presented design concepts and project updates to NREL leadership and key stakeholders
Audience and Goals Matrix
Our team presented the goals, personas, and initial designs to NREL leadership to get approval for the project. We gained approval and moved forward on the project.
Visitor Engagement Story
We came up with the story we wanted to tell visitors:
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You are part of the energy system—and here at NREL, you've stepped into the energy future. Researchers at NREL are collecting and analyzing the energy you’re using right now to develop more abundant, efficient, and cleaner ways to produce and use energy. Explore how NREL uses and generates energy—and watch renewable energy and energy efficiency in action.
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Content Plan
Main Sections
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The current electricity or heating/cooling use for the day
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An example day for winter, spring, summer, and autumn
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The ability to add clouds or sun to example days and view the results
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A transportation view that provided annual energy use and tracked the location of the shuttles around the campus
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Big picture section to show the levels of energy use from the nation, to NREL, to a home
Stories
Stories tie to the main message and can be accessed through buttons on the interface.​
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Each story has the following elements:
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How the story relates to you, NREL, and the world
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How the story demonstrates the values of abundant, clean, and efficient
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How the story compares to typical approaches to energy use
Design Process
I worked closely with another UX designer and a front-end developer on this project. We had weekly creums and design meetings to ensure the designs were programmable in our time frame. The front-end programmer provided great solutions, like using Web3D to render the moving energy balls. We also met weekly with our team, which included a sustainability expert, a content writer, a data analyst, and a data architecture expert.
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We often sketched out ideas on the whiteboard as shown below.
Example Wireframe
