Energy Bill
Reframing a complex problem to create understanding
Company
Lemon
Field
Climatech
Date
June 2024
overview
In this project, I redesigned Lemon's billing interface to clarify billing model, electricity costs and savings, addressing user confusion and trust issues. The solution reimagined how we framed savings and used subtleties to improve understanding without overwhelming users with information.
Context
Company
Lemon is a climate-tech company that connects small solar farms with small businesses to provide affordable, renewable energy
Product
Lemon's electricity bill page was designed to support two payment models
Dual Billing: Separate invoices for Lemon (clean solar energy) and the Utility Company (infrastructure and backup traditional energy).
Unified Billing: A single invoice created by Lemon consolidating both charges, simplifying the customer experience.
Customers
Customers struggled to recognize the unified billing model, mistakenly paying both Lemon's unified bill and the utility company directly. On top of that, like most electricity bills, it struggled to achieve comprehension by typical lay consumers.
Context
Company
Lemon is a climate-tech company that connects small solar farms with small businesses to provide affordable, renewable energy
Product
Lemon's electricity bill page was designed to support two payment models
Dual Billing: Separate invoices for Lemon (clean solar energy) and the Utility Company (infrastructure and backup traditional energy).
Unified Billing: A single invoice created by Lemon consolidating both charges, simplifying the customer experience.
Customers
Customers struggled to recognize the unified billing model, mistakenly paying both Lemon's unified bill and the utility company directly. On top of that, like most electricity bills, it struggled to achieve comprehension by typical lay consumers.
Context
Company
Lemon is a climate-tech company that connects small solar farms with small businesses to provide affordable, renewable energy
Product
Lemon's electricity bill page was designed to support two payment models
Dual Billing: Separate invoices for Lemon (clean solar energy) and the Utility Company (infrastructure and backup traditional energy).
Unified Billing: A single invoice created by Lemon consolidating both charges, simplifying the customer experience.
Customers
Customers struggled to recognize the unified billing model, mistakenly paying both Lemon's unified bill and the utility company directly. On top of that, like most electricity bills, it struggled to achieve comprehension by typical lay consumers.
Challenge
Lemon’s outdated electricty bill shown in a standalone page, unchanged for two years, needed to be replaced by more modern, native interface in the new Lemon app.
We identified areas for improvement through customer surveys, contact rate analysis, feedbacks from surveys, and detractor scores in the NPS. These insights guided the following objectives:
Communicate the unified billing model clearly
Improve understanding to avoid duplicate payments
Build trust in payment handling
Show Lemon can manage all electricity payments, encouraging unified model adoption.
Simplifying the user experience
Ensure the experience extremely simple, even by the standards of Lemon's least tech-savvy users.
Clarifying calculations and savings
Make costs and savings easy to understand
Challenge
Lemon’s outdated electricty bill shown in a standalone page, unchanged for two years, needed to be replaced by more modern, native interface in the new Lemon app.
We identified areas for improvement through customer surveys, contact rate analysis, feedbacks from surveys, and detractor scores in the NPS. These insights guided the following objectives:
Communicate the unified billing model clearly
Improve understanding to avoid duplicate payments
Build trust in payment handling
Show Lemon can manage all electricity payments, encouraging unified model adoption.
Simplifying the user experience
Ensure the experience extremely simple, even by the standards of Lemon's least tech-savvy users.
Clarifying calculations and savings
Make costs and savings easy to understand
Challenge
Lemon’s outdated electricty bill shown in a standalone page, unchanged for two years, needed to be replaced by more modern, native interface in the new Lemon app.
We identified areas for improvement through customer surveys, contact rate analysis, feedbacks from surveys, and detractor scores in the NPS. These insights guided the following objectives:
Communicate the unified billing model clearly
Improve understanding to avoid duplicate payments
Build trust in payment handling
Show Lemon can manage all electricity payments, encouraging unified model adoption.
Simplifying the user experience
Ensure the experience extremely simple, even by the standards of Lemon's least tech-savvy users.
Clarifying calculations and savings
Make costs and savings easy to understand
Communicate the unified billing model clearly
Information architecture focused on showing charges together
Precise labelling + visual cues avoided unnecessary exposition
In-app communication helped land the job
Communicate the unified billing model clearly
Information architecture focused on showing charges together
Precise labelling + visual cues avoided unnecessary exposition
In-app communication helped land the job
Communicate the unified billing model clearly
Information architecture focused on showing charges together
Precise labelling + visual cues avoided unnecessary exposition
In-app communication helped land the job
Build trust in payment handling
Utility company charge's payment status
Tracking of paid bills with double check inspired by users' favorite app: WhatsApp
Real-time push notifications and WhatsApp messages made clear there was nothing to worry about
Build trust in payment handling
Utility company charge's payment status
Tracking of paid bills with double check inspired by users' favorite app: WhatsApp
Real-time push notifications and WhatsApp messages made clear there was nothing to worry about
Build trust in payment handling
Utility company charge's payment status
Tracking of paid bills with double check inspired by users' favorite app: WhatsApp
Real-time push notifications and WhatsApp messages made clear there was nothing to worry about
Simplifying the User Experience
Used progressive disclosure to show detailed billing information only for advanced users
Focusing on primary actions, we removed elements that could be shown elsewhere, such as account info
Simplifying the User Experience
Used progressive disclosure to show detailed billing information only for advanced users
Focusing on primary actions, we removed elements that could be shown elsewhere, such as account info
Simplifying the User Experience
Used progressive disclosure to show detailed billing information only for advanced users
Focusing on primary actions, we removed elements that could be shown elsewhere, such as account info
Clarifying Calculations and Savings
The perception of low savings didn't come from the amount itself. In fact, users hired a fixed saving percentage that was never shown again, breaking trust. Even more, due to lack of anchoring, users couldn't tell whether their savings were a lot or a little.
More than redesigning the UI, I had to reframe the product. Instead of a cheaper electricity bill, one anchored on regular price plus a clearly visible discount applied.
Key new terms, such as the pre-discount amount and savings percentage, were added to the calculation to make it intuitive and ensure the math made sense at a glance
Clarifying Calculations and Savings
The perception of low savings didn't come from the amount itself. In fact, users hired a fixed saving percentage that was never shown again, breaking trust. Even more, due to lack of anchoring, users couldn't tell whether their savings were a lot or a little.
More than redesigning the UI, I had to reframe the product. Instead of a cheaper electricity bill, one anchored on regular price plus a clearly visible discount applied.
Key new terms, such as the pre-discount amount and savings percentage, were added to the calculation to make it intuitive and ensure the math made sense at a glance
Clarifying Calculations and Savings
The perception of low savings didn't come from the amount itself. In fact, users hired a fixed saving percentage that was never shown again, breaking trust. Even more, due to lack of anchoring, users couldn't tell whether their savings were a lot or a little.
More than redesigning the UI, I had to reframe the product. Instead of a cheaper electricity bill, one anchored on regular price plus a clearly visible discount applied.
Key new terms, such as the pre-discount amount and savings percentage, were added to the calculation to make it intuitive and ensure the math made sense at a glance
User testing results
11 out of 12 users preferred the new interface
Most praised the transparency of clearly seeing their discount rate applied to the calculation
The clarity of the calculations was so intuitive that customers inferred they were on the single bill model just by looking at the numbers
User testing results
11 out of 12 users preferred the new interface
Most praised the transparency of clearly seeing their discount rate applied to the calculation
The clarity of the calculations was so intuitive that customers inferred they were on the single bill model just by looking at the numbers
User testing results
11 out of 12 users preferred the new interface
Most praised the transparency of clearly seeing their discount rate applied to the calculation
The clarity of the calculations was so intuitive that customers inferred they were on the single bill model just by looking at the numbers
Impact in numbers
Churn Rate
52.9%
Churn related to lack of perceived savings decreased
Contact Rate
86.6%
Bill-related inquiries decreased, indicating improved understanding