Future Vision for Site Selection

Senior Product Designer • PVcase • 10+ months

Due to NDA, I have limited and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect PVcase's views.

Who is PVcase? PVcase is moving solar forward with an alternative to the traditional labor-intensive, time-consuming, and error-prone solar project development process. Their end-to-end solar development platform connects site selection, PV design, and yield estimation.

Objective & Purpose

The Northstar initiative was launched to address a critical business and user experience challenge: the existing site selection workflow is fragmented, manual and inefficient.

Outcome

Delivered a new future vision for site selection that transforms a manual, step-by-step approach to a more efficient, one-step workflow.

The Challenge

Improve the core site selection functionality and unify the roadmap to create a more efficient experience. The new design should empower our customers to effortlessly navigate the initial stages of the renewable energy lifecycle.

Problem Statement

How might we help our customers create an efficient, and scalable process for initiating RE projects?

My Approach

The perfect design process doesn’t exist–each project warrants various tools, methodologies, and processes. As a seasoned designer, I have to evaluate business goals to ensure a project’s success and figure out the best solution for a design problem.

Tools: Figma, Miro

Research Methods: A mix of stakeholder interviews, concept testing, usability testing, card sorting, click study analysis.

Research & Discovery

Understand the why, the what and the hows–why are we reimaging this site selection experience, what are we building, and how do we validate and track success?
Build empathy for the Renewable Energy (RE) Developer Persona to understand the end-to-end RE Developer process, their current pain points and core motivations, and expectations for a Site Selection tool.

Persona and User Journey: Created these artifacts to help gain alignment

Needs → Insights

🌟 I want to search for land near point of interconnection
🌟 I want to analyze this land for any risks
🌟 I want to take action

💡 To understand land suitability, we initially analyzed the hundreds of variable criteria companies use. User feedback via Card Sorting and interviews simplified this, highlighting only two essential factors: Buildable Land and Grid Interconnection. This informed our design to prominently feature these two criteria in their own section, while grouping the remaining factors into Requirements vs. Exclusions.

Option Trader Personas

JTBD and Pain Points addressed

🔄 Our iterative design process was non-linear. Facing three distinct conceptual search approaches, we lacked a clear path forward. I used quick concept testing to gather feedback, which allowed us to identify the strengths of the different ideas and synthesize them into a single, cohesive workflow. This finalized flow was then validated through usability testing.

Site Selection: Workflow

Connecting the dots: Search, Analyze, Action Workflows

Stakeholder Feedback

“I still think it’s too many clicks”

To address this, we conducted a quantifiable click count study comparing the existing experience (control) against the Northstar prototype.

Results:

85% reduction in clicks using Northstar
An additional 35% reduction when utilizing the new template feature

This concrete data proved the new experience is drastically more efficient. It allowed us to effectively address stakeholder concerns, building rapport and confidence in this new investment.

Site Selection: Workflow

Click Count Study results

The Outcome

We delivered:

A future vision reimagining the site selection experience combining different searches into one unified search experience
A prioritized backlog and detailed roadmap to execute this new vision

All in one simplified site selection workflow