Date: 2020
Sharpen.Design Challenge: Design a desktop app for a solar farm
Scope: I limited the scope to one particular (small) solar farm - Hampshire College solar panel since it’s one I’m already familiar with, and there have been several articles written up about the panels, providing me with some data and usage inspiration. It also let me start with Hampshire’s color palette and typography.
Problem (made-up) : If solar panels are not being monitored closely, they may lose efficiency in providing the maximum amount of energy possible to the college. This application would help the maintenance crew to monitor the solar panels by providing live feedback about each individual panel. In aggregate, the application would also provide analytical data demonstrating the value of solar panels and keeping track of ecological health around the solar panels.
Assumptions: I assumed we’d be able to track each individual panel digitally, that the feed could be provided live to the application. Also I had to assume that this standalone application was the right solution rather than implementing on top of an existing maintenance system. In a real life situation, that might not be the case.
For the main focus of the application, I did a rough 1:1 layout of the solar panel fields to keep the shape of the field and location of the panels visually mapped when trying to locate which one needs attention. A long list of panel numbers would have been overwhelming and less-contextual.
To the left is a section for the open issues that the solar app has detected, so that the types of issues flagged could be seen at a glance. There is overlap in issue-flagging from the panel and to the map, but that redundancy is built-in to provide more context. The flagging on the map is more for location mapping and the flagging in the issue section is more for issue details and actioning.
The dashboard section is where important data aggregates over time. The chart would help show patterns of field output over a selected range of time and the other widgets are keeping track of data that might be valuable in understanding the impact of the solar panel.
The ecological health section, less the focus of the product, is a place where reports about the health of the wildlife and soil around the field could be gathered and easily accessed. At the moment it’s just a collection of pdfs but with more time could definitely be a lot more dynamic in how it gathers and displays data.
A close-up of the issue-flagging/home area. Clicking on the issue would expand the card a bit to show more relevant data on the problem and allow the issue to be assigned to a specific person on the team.
The other end of that would be the assignee getting a notification on perhaps the mobile version of this app or simply a text alerting them off the issue. Once the issue is completed and the system detects that it’s been fixed successfully, the issue disappears.
It might be relevant to have a history of fixed issues - though I did not address that in this mockup and assumed that the app would be focused mainly on open issues.
Hovering/clicking on a specific panel would give a quick popup with insight into the health of that panel.
Another iteration of this map included the Google Maps image underneath the illustration. I didn’t feel that the image was adding much value so I removed it for this purpose.
This chart tracks total field output over a specific time - in this instance, it’s tracking today. Allowing people to select a different timeframe would help them track patterns and answer questions - for example, how efficient is the panel over the seasons? In specific timeframes?
A future iteration of this graph might involve detailed tracking of weather patterns at each data point. (Was it snowing? Overcast?)