Leveraging the Utility Bill PG&E  
designed for Pacific Gas & Electric with David Goligorsky

PG&E, the California utilities company, wanted to reduce the demand for energy at peak usage times by engaging consumers in energy-efficient habits. As the main touchpoint between PG&E and its customers, and consumers' only source of energe usage feedback, we identified the utility bill as an opportunity to connect with and influence consumers. To tackle this massive problem, we combined deep insights about consumer perceptions of energy usage with emerging smart metering technology to create an entirely new billing experience that is intuitive, engaging, and helpful.
New Bill
Our simple, graphical bill provides relevant usage information, as well as personalized advice to help reduce energy
consumption, through features like reminder Post-It notes that can be stuck on refrigerators or near light switches

  Old Bills
Users		  
Current bills are a necessary monthly evil - impersonal and boring, difficult to understand, and lacking in guidance to change usage habits. As a result, consumers easily become disengaged. Using in-depth interviews with a wide variety of people to explore perceptions of energy usage, we identified two trends: 1) People want to visualize and track the energy they consume, but perceive many barriers, and 2) People feel entitled to energy and don't want to sacrifice their lifestyle for conservation.
 
Frameworks
We utilized a series of 2x2 frameworks to synthesize our findings and explore correlations and potential opportunity spaces.
 
Explanation of Bill
We outlined a number of design principles to guide our final concept, including being nonintrusive and familiar,
engaging and interactive, and desirable and attractive