BGE’s EV App
Driving EV Customer Experience Forward
Impact:
Took BGE’s EV customer experience from concept to market in one year, with a pilot team at roughly a third the usual size, cutting project costs by a third along the way.
Role:User Experience Designer (de facto design lead).
Timeline:6-month pilot → 6 months to market.
Team:Experience Design Manager, UX/UI designers, business & data stakeholders.
Tools:Figma, UserZoom, Teams.
The problem:
EV adoption was growing rapidly, but BGE lacked a unified experience for customers to understand their EV energy usage, potential savings, and available programs. Instead, information was fragmented across multiple systems and vendors, leaving customers uncertain about how EV charging would impact their energy bills and concerned about rising costs.
My Role:
I was the only designer who stayed on the project from research through launch. Though no one officially named a lead, I guided three fellow designers, coordinated directly with business, design leadership and development stakeholders, and made the calls that kept the project moving.
How I approached it:
I was the only designer who stayed on the project from research through launch. Though no one officially named a lead, I guided three fellow designers, coordinated directly with business and development stakeholders, and made the calls that kept the project moving.
Started from what existed:
Instead of researching from zero, I pulled in customer journeys, personas, and blueprints from adjacent teams, then layered in new stakeholder surveys to build the personas and flows specific to this project.
Tested our way to mobile-first:
We initially scoped the EV experience to mirror the existing web billing interface. User testing told us otherwise: EV customers manage almost everything from their phones. I repositioned the whole concept as mobile-first, with web as secondary.
Modeled every customer scenario:
Each data interaction needed its own logic. I built four high-fidelity prototypes with component-level states to represent every customer scenario, then mapped those data points for the architecture team to build against.
Iterated fast:
Over about two months, we ran multiple rounds of high-fidelity prototypes and cross-company presentations to pressure-test direction before committing.
Notice: Due to the nature of the work and to protect client data, more detailed information and additional feedback will be provided upon request.
Customer Feedback
These insights emerged from the last round of customer testing across a range of scenarios and use cases.
World context: Rising energy costs and broader economic pressures are making affordability a growing concern for households. As customers look for ways to better manage their expenses, energy providers have an increasing responsibility to make usage, costs, savings opportunities, and available programs easier to understand.
“Every time I compare it to gas, I just feel better… Knowing that I’m saving must mean that I made the right decision”
Customer“Compared to what is now, I feel this would be a huge improvement.”
Customer“Everything’s right there for you to see. It’s easy to follow and you know what you’re saving”
CustomerOutcomes
Concept to market in one year: fast for a highly regulated utility.
1.
Cut project costs by a third: delivered by a pilot team roughly a third the size of a typical funded team.
2.
Redefined how the org runs pilots: the leaner process became a model referenced for future cross-functional projects.
3.
4.
Documented the full pilot as a blueprint so future teams could move faster from day one.