
Diary studies
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.
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

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.

Get rapid, cost-effective consumer feedback on your product, service or policy idea. Home Truths® is the Catapult’s online panel of 000’s of UK households.

It’s hard to relate the things we do at home to the energy we use. So we use models to relate behaviour to energy.

Back in 2014 we were early on our journey to find out how to decarbonise heating. Businesses were starting to launch smarter heating controls. We wanted to find out how people used them.

We conducted a bespoke four-day design sprint with Big Clean Switch to help them design, build and test a digital platform that allows energy customers to make informed choices about their home energy improvements.

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.

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?

We gathered the best in the industry to run a 1-day bootcamp-style hackathon where this super-team developed a free open-source tool to score and publicly test solutions to UK fuel poverty.

How to articulate what the key value of your product and services? We ran a 1 day workshop to refine language around a groundbreaking new proposition

Turn your concept into a prototype you can get feedback on. Our service designers and UX professionals can help you apply leading-edge digital tools to qualify and de-risk your idea.

Decarbonisation of the energy system will change the way that consumers use and buy energy. If you want to ensure that your innovation is inclusive for all it is essential that you understand consumer risks. We created a manual with structured tasks to help you identify your risks and consider how you might address them.

Back when smart heating controls first came to market government wanted see how easy they were to use to inform their policies.

In May 2018 we fielded a team of UX and Service Designers to attend Octopus Energy’s ‘OctoHack’ event where the focus was novel applications of the Agile tariff API.

Kick-start innovation with design thinking. Map out how your customers experience your product or service. Then use simple exercises to structure your creativity.

Government is investing £100m in smart local energy system innovation projects from 2019-22. The aim is to create high value jobs providing cleaner, cheaper renewable energy.
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.
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Cannon House, 18 The Priory Queensway
Birmingham B4 6BS8
We love small print. Said nobody, ever.