How might we reimagine a niche expert app into a joyful and accessible clean tech consumer experience that scales with demand?
months from blank canvas to launch
continents launched
global ethnographic interviews
responses from a global user survey
In this project, I played a key role in transforming a niche expert app into an engaging and scalable consumer product for the rapidly expanding solar energy market. In under a year, we followed a structured three-phase plan, encompassing in-depth research, product strategy, design exploration, implementation, and the creation of a design system to support future growth.
The result is an intuitive app that adapts seamlessly to the diverse needs of global users and simplifies complex energy management for newcomers, while still providing expert users with powerful advanced functionalities. By prioritizing a user-centered design with meaningful insights and gamified features, we delivered an engaging experience that fosters community and promotes energy-saving behaviors worldwide.
In recent years, the solar energy market has seen rapid, unprecedented growth, drawing interest from a wider audience beyond experts and early adopting enthusiasts. This shift prompted us to rethink our primary digital touchpoint and create a new consumer app designed to meet these expanding needs. Our goal was to make complex (and in the future even further growing) energy systems accessible and intuitive for all users – delivering an engaging, user-friendly experience for newcomers while preserving the powerful functionality that ensures loyalty from our existing user base.
To define and prioritize key hypotheses, we embraced a co-creative approach, hosting three intensive full-day workshops. We also conducted 21 user interviews across four key markets – Germany, Italy, the USA, and Australia – to develop a comprehensive user typology that explored behaviours, motivations, and concerns around energy production and consumption.
These interviews uncovered a shared desire for self-sufficiency, fueled by varied motivations – driving forward the green energy transition, being financially reasonable and protected from external factors. We also found that energy had become a deeply emotional topic, with people seeking to contribute to a broader energy movement. Additionally, a market analysis and benchmarking exercise revealed a significant lack of differentiation in core features, which often remain tailored to expert users.
Building on our research findings, we crafted a customer-centric product vision and strategy. Our goal was to create a visually distinct mobile app that emphasizes joyful energy management through meaningful insights, moving beyond simple data presentation. Understanding the diverse needs of global markets, we adopted a modular design approach, enabling customizable feature sets tailored to each market’s specific needs. To foster a stronger sense of community within the sonnenCommunity, we designed an experience that empowers users in a playful and motivating way, without pressuring them into active participation.
During the design exploration phase, we explored various visual directions to engage a broad consumer audience through emotionally resonant language. Using iterative qualitative and quantitative testing, we struck the ideal balance between delivering information and evoking emotion, ensuring both desirability and usability.
Establishing core design principles provided clear guidelines and direction for the next stages of development.
The team developed an intuitive companion app that seamlessly integrates sonnen’s entire product ecosystem, including energy storage, electric vehicle chargers, energy contracts, and third-party products like heat pumps. This modular, scalable digital platform adapts to different configurations and allows for market-specific customization on a global scale.
Elevating energy management, our solution focuses on rewarding energy-saving behaviours through engaging and dynamic features. Instead of merely displaying data, we present it in a way that’s actionable, meaningful, and enjoyable. Our newly introduced ‚detail view switch‘ allows users to seamlessly toggle between detailed data visualizations for in-depth analysis and simplified insights for everyday use. Newcomers enjoy a simplified experience, while experts have full access to all the data they need.
Additionally, new gamification elements serve as a first step in transforming sonnen’s customer base, the ’sonnenCommunity‘, from a powerful marketing concept into concrete, community-building features that foster a sense of belonging beyond the functional benefits of a decentralized energy grid.
- Align on Terminology and Project Goals Early
Invest time at the outset to clarify expectations and terminology with all stakeholders. Avoid misunderstandings like calling for an MVP when a complete relaunch is actually required. - Adapt Research for Global Markets
Extend research timelines with each additional global market. User needs vary significantly across regions, even for niche products. Validate designs in every market as often as possible to ensure relevance and usability. - Account for Stakeholder Communication Overhead
Double your internal communication time. Convincing all stakeholders takes considerable effort, but it’s essential to avoid frustrating scenarios where a HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) undermines user insights and team progress.
