Helping Energy Systems Catapult to create a more inclusive and accessible way for people who are digitally excluded to get involved with energy research projects
Project aims:
The Living Lab is a network of volunteers from all around the UK, who help Energy Systems Catapult to understand how energy is used in real-life settings. In other words, their homes.
The Living lab wanted to make the experience of being a Living Lab volunteer more accessible and inclusive for people who are digitally excluded or not comfortable with digital technology.
Project approach
We helped to map out what the current research trial journey looks like and what it might need to look like in the future to be inclusive and accessible for people who are digitally excluded.
We then designed some future key touch points and took these all into a few co-design workshops to help amend, build and refine the future journey to ensure it would work well for someone who is digitally excluded. We also conducted phone interviews to include people who did not feel comfortable attending a workshop.
Inclusively partnered with Common Collective to deliver this project.
Co-designing future experiences with people are digitally excluded or are not comfortable with digital technology:
There are many reasons why someone might be digitally excluded or not comfortable with digital technology:
Confidence and ability
Accessibility needs
Lack of access to the internet
Affordability
Mistrust and fear
and some people just don't want to use digital technology
We recruited people who were digitally excluded or not comfortable with digital technology for a variety of reasons to ensure we could create a future experience that would work for everyone. The workshops were conducted iteratively over three weeks to allow people space and time to explore their needs to feel fully supported and included in a research trial.
Creating an inclusive playbook and guide for how best to run future energy research projects:
Within the co-design workshops we went through what the future experience could be and further co-designed it with people who had lived experience of being digitally excluded.
We then used these learnings to make improvements and created a playbook for how to best involve people who are digitally excluded in future energy research projects ready for the Living Lab team to use.
The outcomes and impact:
The Living Lab team and Energy Systems Catapult now have a playbook, guide and some of the key touch points they will need in the future run further Inclusive and accessible energy research projects with people who are not digitally excluded or not comfortable with digital technology
“We were extremely impressed with Inclusively and Common Collective from start to finish on our project. The team demonstrated great sensitivity to vulnerable customer groups and quickly developed an understanding of our context and constraints. They delivered high quality research and concrete, actionable guidance on service improvements. Their project management and communications were exceptional from proposal through to delivery.”
— Claire Rowland, she/her, Senior Manager, Living Lab/WESA
Thank you to all those we spoke to as part of this research. Thank you to Energy Systems Catapult for being so brilliant to work with!
Also a massive thank you to Claire at The Field for some brilliant inclusive recuitment
Client: Energy Systems Catapult
Services: Service Design, User Research, Design Research
Team: Charley Pothecary, Kat Jennings