[Introduction]
Nov 2024
Helping Severn Trent engage 25,000 smart-meter customers to reduce water use through a seamless, gamified Nectar rewards dashboard.
I designed and delivered a mobile-first, intuitive dashboard that makes water consumption tangible and rewarding, blending two powerhouse brands - Severn Trent and Nectar - into a single seamless experience. This initiative encourages mindful water use via gamification and rewards and is poised to influence real behaviour over the 18-month pilot.
[Description]
This project was a strategic exercise in behavioural design.
The goal wasn't just to display data, but to use the powerful combination of gamification and brand trust to motivate 25,000 users to change a deeply ingrained daily habit: their water usage.
Design Thinking & Process
The Core Design Challenge
The primary challenge was a fundamental disconnect in user perception—people vastly underestimated their water usage. Our solution had to make the invisible, visible. Furthermore, we had to blend two distinct brand identities: Severn Trent's trust and reliability with Nectar's vibrant excitement and reward. My role was to act as a design diplomat, creating a seamless experience that felt like a single product, not a cobranded afterthought.
Brand Stitching: I didn't simply layer Nectar's bright yellow onto Severn Trent's blue. Instead, I established Severn Trent's palette as the primary UI foundation to maintain a sense of utility and trust. Nectar's gold was then applied strategically as an accent colour for rewards and achievements, making points and progress feel exciting and valuable. This created a visual hierarchy where the app felt trustworthy, but celebrated moments of success with Nectar's distinctive energy.
The Psychology of Gamification
The gamification strategy was carefully designed to tap into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation loops, moving beyond simple transactions.
The "Goal Tank" Visual Metaphor: A simple progress bar wouldn't suffice. I designed the weekly water goal as a tank that visually empties. This creates a tangible, at-a-glance connection between the abstract concept of "142 litres" and a finite resource. It triggers a subconscious desire to "conserve what's left," making the goal feel more real and urgent.
The Escalating Streak Counter: This was a deliberate decision to build long-term habits. The design doesn't just count days; it escalates the reward value. This leverages the "endowment effect" in behavioural psychology - the longer the streak, the more painful (and motivating) it feels to break it. The UI highlights this progression, making the user feel they are building towards a significant milestone.
Badges as Social Proof: The badge system was designed not just as a personal pat on the back, but as a potential tool for social sharing. Each badge represents a specific behaviour (e.g., "First Leak Found," "Conservation Champion"), providing a narrative of the user's journey and creating opportunities for positive social reinforcement.
Architecting for Speed and Scalability
With a tight 4-week deadline for core features, the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) guided every decision.
Mobile-First & Modular Bento Grid: The 70% mobile usage statistic dictated a mobile-first approach. The bento-style, card-based layout was again the perfect architectural choice. It allowed us to launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) quickly by building and testing one "card" (e.g., the Goal Tank) at a time. This modularity also ensures the dashboard can scale effortlessly; new features like "community challenges" or "personalised tips" can be added as new cards in future phases without disrupting the existing user experience.
Prioritised Core Flows: We focused the initial design and development sprint on the two most critical user journeys: 1) Linking the Nectar account (the gateway to the experience) and 2) Viewing the weekly goal and points balance (the core reward loop). By perfecting these flows, we ensured a smooth and immediately valuable onboarding experience.
Data Visualisation for Behavioural Nudges
The daily trend graph was designed for clarity and insight, not just data dumping. Its clean, elegant presentation allows users to quickly correlate spikes in usage with specific days of the week, encouraging them to reflect on their activities and identify opportunities for saving. This turns raw data into a tool for self-discovery and behaviour change.
Conclusion & Iterative Vision
The launched dashboard is a testament to a human-centred approach that balances brand integrity with behavioural science. The positive early engagement signals that the design successfully made water conservation personal, tangible, and rewarding. The planned next steps - deeper user testing and analytics - will continue this iterative cycle, using real-world data to refine the incentives and introduce new features that sustain this positive behaviour change over the long term.
