Mapping the next version of Mitt Vattenfall, so that improving the experience stopped losing to the feature backlog

Senior Product Designer & Design Lead
Concept
Vattenfall
React Native
UX
UI

The focus on delivering new features meant improvement tasks often got deprioritised. I thought it could help to create a vision for where the app could go next, something that balanced user needs with business goals while exploring new possibilities to take the experience to the next level for our users.

why it mattered

Without a shared picture of where the app was going, every improvement competed with the next feature and lost. A vision gave that work somewhere to belong, and gave the team one direction to argue from rather than several.

the challenges

1. Moving Documents out of the tab bar without making contract and invoice information harder to find. Usability tests showed customers expected those under My Account, but the tab had been their route to them.

2. Delivering a vision the team could actually build, alongside the feature work already committed.

the approach

We kept the brand recognisable but added more playful colours, something users and stakeholders had been asking for. Home tab widgets became interactive, so instead of showing static information users could tap through to see more detail, with 7-day price forecasting so people could plan their energy use ahead of time.

Contract and invoicing widgets moved onto Home, which made them quicker to reach than the tab they replaced. The Overview tab gained comparisons with similar households and personalised tips next to them, and the electricity prices view gained a consumption planner for scheduling laundry or EV charging during cheaper hours, plus daily price alerts.

the impact

This project brought the team together around a shared vision and gave us a clear direction forward. Working with our product owner and business leads, we made sure the concept was realistic and could actually be built in the coming months.

Other projects

research & discovery

Usability tests with Vattenfall customers showed they expected documents and contract details under My Account. Analytics from Piwik Pro and PowerBI confirmed most people navigated through Home tab widgets anyway. The tech team was also building an MCP server to enable AI features like cost predictions and personalised insights, which shaped what the concept could assume.

the design process

With that in mind, we started rethinking the app. The palette opened up while the brand stayed recognisable, which is what users and stakeholders had been asking for. The tab structure mostly stayed the same, but we moved Documents into My Account and brought Account back to the tab bar.

We reintroduced features like the consumption planner, which helps users schedule activities during the cheapest hours, and household consumption comparisons for realistic benchmarks.

decisions & trade-offs

Taking Documents out of the tab bar risked burying contract and invoice information users had told us was essential, so it moved onto Home as widgets. That trades a place of its own for a shorter route: quicker to reach, no longer somewhere you go to browse.

We split the work into eight phases so improvements could ship alongside the feature backlog rather than compete with it, which means the vision arrives gradually rather than as a release.

what I learned

The biggest lesson was the value of getting everyone involved early. This wasn't just a design goal, it became something the whole team believed in and wanted to achieve together.

Using data helped a lot with stakeholder buy-in. Diving into analytics dashboards and talking to people across different teams made the case stronger and built support for the changes we were proposing.