Case study 01/Government · CleanBC/0 → 1 service design

BC Home Energy Planner

Turning a complex energy system into a homeowner decision experience

The BC Home Energy Planner is a government-backed, province-wide service that helps homeowners understand their home's energy performance and make informed decisions about improvements.

Built on Properate's existing energy modelling platform, I helped transform an expert-oriented system into a homeowner-first experience — from understanding a home's performance to deciding what to do next.

Live site Three tensions

Role: Service Design Lead (0→1)
Scope: Product strategy · Service design · UX · Interaction design · Prototyping · Usability testing · Delivery
Impact: Province-wide · Available to BC’s 5.6M residents
Context: Government · CleanBC initiative
Timeline: July 2023 – Present

BC Home Energy Planner interface overview — BC Home Energy Planner — province-wide serviceFig. 01

00 / Starting point

We didn't start with a blank canvas.

The BC Home Energy Planner was built on Properate's existing energy modelling platform — a system designed for multiple audiences, including homeowners, energy advisors, and institutional stakeholders.

Challenge

Turn that expert-oriented capability into a self-service experience homeowners could understand and act on.

01What to keep?
02What to simplify?
03What to rethink for a homeowner-first journey?

Transformation

From an expert-facing assessment platform → to a homeowner-facing service.

From Multi-user system To A homeowner-first entry point
From Technical outputs To Actionable decisions
From Insights To Rebate-aware, real-world next steps

A different audience, a different balance.

Properate's existing platform needed to serve both homeowners and energy professionals. Its direct path to energy insights and upgrades made sense for users who already knew what they were looking for.

For the Planner, we were designing for homeowners who might need more context before deciding what to do — but we couldn't add guidance at the cost of making the experience feel slower or more complicated.

Directness Get me to relevant upgrades quickly

Guidance Help me understand what I'm choosing

This became our first design tension

Tension 01

How much guidance is enough?

The existing platform was designed to get users to energy insights and upgrades efficiently. For the Planner, we were designing for homeowners who might not be familiar with energy concepts and need more context to answer confidently.

This created a tension between directness and guidance.

Finding the balance

I considered how to provide context without turning the questionnaire into a learning exercise.

With little context Users may not understand what they're being asked.

With much context The questionnaire becomes harder to scan and complete.

My decision

Designing the questionnaire around two needs

I kept the question as the primary task, while introducing contextual guidance alongside it.

Question — primary task Clear question, instructions, and answer choices.

Context — supporting guidance Explanations, examples, and visuals that help users understand unfamiliar concepts.

This led to a split-screen pattern: the question remained the focus, while relevant educational content was available alongside it without sending users away from the assessment.

LPrimary task (on the left): Clear question + instructions + answer choices
RContextual guidance (on the right): Explanation + examples + visuals

Split-screen questionnaire with question on the left — Fig. 02 — Question + context, side by side

Split-screen questionnaire with expanded contextual guidance — Fig. 03 — Guidance expanded in place

The split-screen layout allowed users to access context without leaving the flow or interrupting the task.

The trade-off

I deliberately accepted some additional visual density in exchange for giving homeowners more confidence at the moment they needed to answer.

Less visual complexity More contextual guidance

The goal wasn't to give users more information — it was to make the right information available at the right moment.

But making information available wasn't enough.

In the first version, the contextual guidance was presented through a relatively subtle "Learn more" treatment. During testing, users often overlooked it.

The problem wasn't that the information was missing. It simply wasn't noticeable enough.

Insight

If users don't notice the guidance, its value is effectively zero.

So rather than adding more educational content, I focused on making the existing guidance easier to notice and understand.

From "Learn more" → to contextual guidance

Version 1 with a subtle Learn more link — V1 — Easy to overlook A lightweight prompt made the information available, but didn't give users a strong reason to engage with it.

Version 2 with a contextual card and visual background — V2 — Clearer and more useful Added a visual background and a contextual card with a short explanation, making the guidance more noticeable and useful before users decide to expand it.

I changed three things

01 More visible Gave the explainer enough visual weight to compete with the primary task.
02 More specific Replaced generic "Learn more" language with a title directly connected to the question.
03 Progressive disclosure Provided enough context upfront while keeping deeper information behind "Expand."

The trade-off

I gave the explainer more visual weight, accepting a denser interface so users would actually notice the guidance.

Less visual simplicity More discoverability

The goal wasn't to add more information. It was to make the right information noticeable when homeowners needed it.

Tension 02

How do we make a complex system feel simple?

System complexity User simplicity

The Planner had to work within rules the interface couldn't change — from identity requirements to different user states and authentication outcomes.

The system could be complex.
The experience shouldn't have to be.

My role was to decide where that complexity should live: in the interface, or in the system logic behind it.

A Don't make users understand identity rules

When a system requirement becomes a user problem

The original flow didn't explicitly ask for a middle name.

When the authentication requirements changed, we needed to collect users' full legal names, including middle names where applicable.

Instead of treating this as a simple form-field addition, I iterated on how the requirement should appear in the experience.

Name fields in the authentication form — Fig. 04 — The name capture moment

Three iterations

Original form without a middle name field — The original form was simple, but it didn't capture the full legal name required for authentication.

Middle name combined into the first name field — I first incorporated middle names into the existing first-name field to preserve the compact form structure. Testing showed that users could still overlook the requirement.

Middle name as its own explicit field — I separated middle name into its own field, making the requirement visible at the exact moment users needed to provide it.

The trade-off

Form simplicity Fewer fields

Identity clarity More explicit requirement

I accepted a slightly longer form to make an important authentication requirement harder to miss.

The challenge wasn't collecting more information — it was making the requirement clear enough to act on.

B Don't make users understand system states

Returning users

Once authentication was handled, another question emerged: what should a returning homeowner see when they come back?

The system knew exactly what state they were in. The user didn't.

Original design

Original returning-user screen with four equal destinations — Fig. 05 — Four equal-weight destinations

4 destinations 1 decision All four destinations were valid, but users had to figure out which one matched what they wanted to do next.

Diagram of four destinations branching from one decision — Fig. 06 — Mapping the returning-user states

From destinations to intentions

Instead of exposing every destination at the same level, I reorganized the experience around what users were trying to accomplish. The top level became intentionally simple, while the system handled the branching underneath based on the user's previous progress.

We redesigned the experience to guide returning users toward the most relevant next steps, reducing decision friction and making actions easier to prioritize.

01Introduced a structured overview to replace multiple equal-weight actions
02Grouped related actions (report, plan, updates) into clear sections
03Added contextual prompts to highlight what may need attention
04Established a clearer visual hierarchy to guide user focus

Redesigned overview for users who completed the full flow — For returning users who have completed the full flow

Redesigned overview for users who completed part of the flow — For returning users who have completed part of the flow previously

The trade-off

Flat access Everything is visible at once

Guided hierarchy Users choose an intent first

I traded immediate access for clearer prioritization — keeping the same destinations while changing how users encountered them.

The added layer gave users fewer decisions to process upfront without limiting what they could access.

Impact

↓ 25% Time to First Action Users were able to decide what to do next more quickly.

↑ 20% Questionnaire Completion Rate More users continued and completed the remaining steps.

Outcome

The redesigned overview reduced decision friction and helped returning users confidently move forward.

Tension 03

How do we move users from understanding to action?

Our original hypothesis — Progressive disclosure

I intentionally separated the Report and Plan to gradually introduce complexity — helping homeowners understand their home before asking them to think about upgrades.

Full journey map from questionnaire to rebates — Fig. 07 — The end-to-end journey

Questionnaire
→
ReportUnderstand
→
MotivationsPersonalize
→
PlanDecide
→
RebatesAct

But the journey created an unexpected stopping point

ReportUnderstand
→stopping point
MotivationsPersonalize
→
PlanDecide

Testing showed that some homeowners reached the Report and stopped there. The Report answered their immediate questions, but didn't always create a clear reason to continue.

The product goal wasn't just understanding

Understand my home
→
Choose an upgrade
→
Get a rebate
→
Improve my home

How might we reduce complexity without creating distance from action?

Then: challenge the original model

Should Report and Plan really be separate?

This wasn't just a usability issue. Our business goal was to help homeowners move from understanding their home to making upgrades, pursuing rebates, and taking action.

Before

ReportWhat is happening?

PlanWhat should I do?

Exploring: one continuous experience

Understand
→
Diagnose
→
Decide
→
Act

The trade-off

Progressive disclosure Easier to digest Clearer stages Risk of stopping

Continuous momentum Stronger continuity Clearer path to action Potentially denser experience

Separating the experiences made the journey easier to digest, but created a boundary between understanding and action.

The merged direction brings those stages closer together while keeping the experience structured through a clear information hierarchy.

Ongoing evolution

I'm currently exploring this merged model with the team. The goal isn't to show everything at once, but to make the progression from understanding → decision → action feel like one continuous journey.

Key learnings.

01 Clarity is not the same as simplicity

Simplifying the interface isn't always about showing less. It's about making the right information impossible to miss.
02 Good hierarchy reduces decision friction

When multiple actions are valid, the role of design is not to remove choice — but to make the path through those choices clearer.
03 A successful journey connects understanding to action

Progressive disclosure can make complexity easier to digest — but if the next step feels too far away, users may stop before taking action.

The pilot program has been tremendously successful, validating its value to homeowners, and granting us important opportunities for us to improve the tool prior to its provincial launch.

Brett Auger BC Home Energy Planner Project Owner