2016 | Santiago, Chile
Graphic Designer Consultant For The Chilean Electric Bill
work on
Research
User Experience
User Interface
DATA visualisation
Project developed by Chilean Laboratory of Government (LabGob), Superintendence of Electricity and Fuels (SEC), and Consumer National Service (SERNAC).
The initiative to redesign the electric bill in Chile started in 2014 after the SEC conducted a poll asking 30,000 people about their understanding of the existing billing method. The results revealed that more than 51% of consumers did not understand how to read their electric bill. In other words, 1 in 2 costumers didn’t understand what they were paying. That same year, LabGob set out to enhance governmental departments, policies, and services by engaging citizens to generate innovative solutions. The electric bill became one of the first projects LabGob took on in collaboration with several governmental departments and electric supply companies.
1 of 2 Chilean Customers Didn’t Understand What They Were Paying.
I started at LabGob as a designer consultant a few months into the project. In my role as a user interface designer (UI), I was a part of an interdisciplinary team challenged with developing a means to co-create public policy that blended technical feasibility with user behavior. Specifically, I worked to collect field research and design mockup proposals.
Our work created a bridge between the authorities and real users
We found that one of the biggest problems users had with the existing electric bill was with language used to detail the costs of service. So, in an effort to address this semantic confusion, we worked with sociologists to devise testing samples for real users of different ages, cities, and sociocultural backgrounds.
Testing Samples from different parts of the design process
Then, we set to work redesigning the format of the bill. We prioritized improving the user-experience with an easy-to-read layout that highlighted basic data points about consumption, i.e., how much the customer owed, what their payment covered, and when the bill was due.
The new layout was tested with users through a trial-and-error process, which ultimately shaped the bill’s final design. Implementation of this design took a few years to complete; however, it is now the go-to template used by all electric supply companies in Chile.
Recent Polls Show A Remarkable Increase In The Comprehension And Understanding Of Users
The bill’s final design, in place since 2017
Nearly 7.5 Million Users Have Benefited From The Bill’s New Design
The new format of the electric bill has been in wide spread use in Chile since 2017, benefiting nearly 7.5 million users. Polls show that the design has increased customer comprehension by 23.2% and increased customer understanding by 22.5%, which went to validate LabGob’s mission.