Discover what people really value with bespoke research
Build appealing propositions with our experienced players
Discover how consumers use your product or service
Harness innovation to reduce vulnerability to fuel poverty and design smarter consumer protection
UX/UI excellence from a team of proven heavyweights
See beyond what people say to understand what they do in smart homes around the UK
We hear more and more about electric vehicles every day. We see charging points for them at supermarkets and motorway services. But how do people really feel about EVs?
Kick-start innovation with design thinking. Map out how your customers experience your product or service. Then use simple exercises to structure your creativity.
We use 80% of our energy at home for heating and hot water. This produces 20% of our carbon emissions. We need to give people the heat they want without the carbon. So, back in 2013, we built a team of leading academics and consultants to understand how people use heat at home.
Imagine people bought energy services, like a warm home, instead of units of fuel. Our consumer segmentation report is essential reading to developers of energy services.
We’ve done various studies to understand how life shapes energy use. We use sensors to see beyond what people say to what they do, and models to relate behaviour to energy use.
Millions of households live with illnesses made worse by the cold. What if you could prescribe a warm home to them? We thought we’d try this out by prototyping a smart energy service for households suffering from a cold-related chronic illness.
60,000 electric vehicles were bought in UK last year. We interviewed electric car drivers to see what they thought about letting energy suppliers control their charging.
There’s growing interest in the idea that businesses could sell energy as a service. Confident we could sell Heat as a Service, we wanted to explore how to add Hot Water. We used a Design Sprint to see how far we could get in three days.
If we are to reach net zero carbon emissions, businesses will have to play their part.
We set out to understand what businesses are trying to achieve through energy management and what their key needs are to determine what an energy management solution might look like and how demand-side response (DSR) could be part of this solution.
People are different, especially when it comes to energy. They want different things and do different things to get what they want. Segmentation puts similar people into groups.
Want to understand how different EV users charge their vehicles?
We have created five personas based on want consumers want from electric vehicle charging and demand-side response.
Find out how people use your product or service so you can improve it. Use simple things, like diaries, to record their everyday experiences using your product.
Make sure people can easily use your product or service before you launch it. Give designers the information they need to create delightful experiences.
As renewable energy generation grows, matching available electricity supply to consumers’ demands gets harder.
We looked at how Electric vehicles could help to balance the grid by testing DSR with domestic EV users. Can this fit into people’s lives? Or will they reject it if it takes away their control?
We can take responsibility for the entire design development cycle and build you a winning digital experience that is consumer-proven, technically robust and developer-ready.
We succeed when you succeed: leverage our unique position
We are helping shape the policy landscape for the next 25 years
Matchmakers for government and entrepreneurs
Use Catapult modelling tools to validate propositions across the wider energy system
We collaborate with innovators to deliver projects that move towards decarbonisation goals
The Energy Systems Catapult is a not-for-profit set up by government to help the energy sector innovate. PeopleLab is home to our Consumer Insight team.
Find out more about the rest of the Catapult here then get us involved.
Invite us to your Hackathons and Design Sprints…
…it’s free!
Come and see us for a friendly
chat over a cuppa.
Cannon House, 18 The Priory Queensway
Birmingham B4 6BS8
We love small print. Said nobody, ever.