PROJECT
Heatio Flexx Platform
SUMMARY
I lead the product design of the Heatio Flexx platform in early 2024
INTRODUCTION
Company & project backgound
Based in my home town of Liverpool, Heatio Ltd is a fast-paced tech start-up. They recently won the 23/24 Baltic Ventures Accelerator program with their business idea of making renewable energy affordable and accessible for everyone.
This case study is a little different to others because of where I entered the product journey. Heatio approached me after many failed attempts with agencies and other contract designers to help them visualise their ideas for the Flexx Platform. They needed somebody onboard who was able to translate the consumer research into a fluent user journey, without causing any hiccups in development.
Because of the issues they had faced with previous iterations, the in-house development team were nearly maxed out in what they could do on the back end. This meant that we had to work quickly to start getting designs and flows over to the developers to get them built.
RESEARCH
Where do we begin?
​Before we started any work, I met with the key members of the team who had been in this process for a while. I was given a brief rundown of the business, along with an extensive overview of what we needed to create, rapidly. I was given access to previous iterations, past research and current requirements.
UX & UI
Getting down to business
I wouldn't usually do this, but with the time constraints, we jumped straight into sketching and visualising flows. The main issue we faced at this stage was that there was no brand for heatio. We had a basic logo and a few colours to experiment with, but no guidelines or component libraries to use. I'm no stranger to UI and brand having spent a lot of my earlier career as a graphic designer, so I set to work on creating a visual look and feel that felt cohesive, passed accessibility and was also very easily changeable for when we did look at the brand side of things in the future.
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With the nature of this product, as soon as one section of the design was done, the product team would be on a call reviewing, and feeding back and I would iterate live on Figma to the team. This avoided any more unnecessary time spent, where it could be spent on the product.
UX & UI
Data visualisation
The majority of time spent on this product was within the dashboard. Although we needed to deliver quickly, we cut no corners when it came to the data visualisation components. We knew there were going to be many different data-heavy scenarios and to ensure a smooth user journey for every one of our future users, we designed each variant and allowed them to be manipulated within Figma to show the different states. As a design>development team, we set up a Storybook to view the different components and design QA before being added to the test site. This helped tremendously when it came down to final testing before launch.
UI DESIGN
Brand & Website
Running parallel to the Flexx Platform that I was working on, the Marketing team were also outsourcing a designer for a brand new website and brand book. I supported this project by advising on accessibility and overall UX.
LAUNCH
Preparing for launch
A couple of weeks later, we had created a fully functioning design within Figma. We had a design file used to show the user flows and also a component/style sheet where all of the variants of the platform lived.
I received many messages of praise from CEOs and Investors for helping move the product along so quickly.
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After I had given my green light for the Flexx Platform to go live, the developers spent a little more time bug-fixing before releasing it to a beta group. A couple of weeks later, the platform was pushed live and ready available online.
"At Heatio, we pride ourselves on delivering top-notch products and services, and having the right team in place is crucial to our success. Sophie has been an invaluable part of our journey, consistently providing outstanding support across all our design needs."
Simon Roberts, CEO and Founder of Heatio
POST-LAUNCH
Was 'quick-design' a success?
The work we completed as a team in such a short amount of time, secured Heatio with a huge B2B client and later a massive investment.
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We are now in a luxurious position where we have a live platform and live active users to gain real-life feedback from. We have made quite a headway with phase 2 tweaks and priorities. Currently, we are in the process of reviewing the current UX and how we can improve. It is a great time to be part of a company who are constantly working on their product, levelling up all the time.
See the product live here: flexx.heatio.com/signup