From Assumption to Evidence: Continuous UX Research and Design for Germany's Energy Grid
Challenge
The client is one of Germany's four transmission system operators — responsible for keeping the electricity grid stable across the north and northeast of the country and for integrating large volumes of renewable energy into the national network. A critical part of that operation runs through a self-service portal used by distribution grid operators: the platform where they submit, view, and analyse the mass data that underpins the energy handover process between the national transmission grid and local networks. The portal worked in a functional sense, but usage was shallow and retention was low. The operators who depended on it weren't getting enough value out of it — and the team had no systematic way of knowing why. What was missing was a research-driven foundation: a clear picture of how the platform was actually being used, where it was falling short, and what to build next.
My Role
I joined the client's product team as an embedded freelance UX researcher and designer over an extended engagement. My work spanned the full cycle: structuring and running mixed-method user research, synthesising findings into actionable direction, designing new features, and establishing the metrics needed to know whether changes were actually working.
Activities
- Planned, conducted, and analysed qualitative interviews with distribution grid operators — exploring day-to-day workflows, frustrations, and the gap between what the portal offered and what users actually needed
- Quantitative analysis of platform analytics (Hotjar and Matomo) to surface usage patterns, drop-off points, and underperforming interactions across the platform
- Wrote detailed research reports and communicated findings to stakeholders across business and IT
- Facilitated co-creation sessions for UX strategy and new feature ideation with key stakeholders
- Designed new features from initial concept through to final handoff to development
- Defined and instrumented UX metrics — including time-on-task and key interaction tracking such as data exports — to establish a baseline and measure the impact of changes over time
Outcome
The engagement produced a continuous stream of research insight: a living, mixed-method picture of how distribution grid operators were actually using the platform and where it was letting them down. That insight fed directly into the product roadmap. New features were designed, shipped, and iterated on. And for the first time, the team had reliable UX metrics in place — a way to measure, not just assume, whether changes were making a difference. Across the platform, usage depth and retention improved.