MyAccount Redesign

Modernize MyAccount by providing useful information and promoting self service

Research  |  Visual and Interaction Design  |

THE CHALLENGE

 FirstEnergy is a U.S. electric utility with over 6 million customers across OH, PA, NJ, WV, MD, and NY. The MyAccount area of the website gets millions of login’s each year. 

 The MyAccount area of the website had been minimally updated over the last almost 10 years. We found through research it was not meeting our customer’s needs nor was it promoting online self-service, a business goal. 

 

  • Goals of research
    • Understand what information users are looking for on an account dashboard 
    • Understand how users group and look for information
    • Baseline the current MyAccount experience
    • Validate improved desireability and usability of the new MyAccount experience
  • Goals of redesign
    • Improve navigation so it’s consistent and easy to find information
    • Create an actionable dashboard that surfaces common actions
    • Promote online self-service to reduce calls to the care center 
    • Create a ‘message center’ to reduce information overload on the landing page and create room for more and different types of messages 
    • Overall modernization of the visual design and interactions that’s as easy to on mobile as it is on desktop 

MY ROLE

Though I am a manager, I’m a ‘working manager’ – meaning day to day I also support the work of squads from time to time. When it comes to the FE website I’m involved heavily and daily. For this re-design I helped form the plan of attack, reviewed and approved all research guides, reviewed research findings, directed next steps, and participated in many rounds of visual design reviews to get the final product refined. In addition to this, I regulate the flow of work for my team, as we have several designers supporting the website. I coordinate who is working on what and the time in which it will get done, all within the broader context of the agile squad. I host multiple recurring weekly web designer meetings with difference audiences to ensure alignment between my team and the rest of the product and channels. 

CARD SORT RESEARCH

Background

The Billing, MIMO, and Outage journeys are all considering enhancements to the My Account page. A large portion of customers in both Outage and MIMO journeys sign into their account first to accomplish their goals, but after sign in they land on the My Account page where they can only access billing information easily. The three journeys are working together to provide customers with ways they can self-serve for all their needs beginning from their My Account page.

We will conduct two rounds of card sorts.

  • The first round will be an open card sort of topics inside My Account, pages/topics included in the current left navigation on My Account, and topics identified from other research that customers would like to access from My Account.
  • The second round will be a closed card sort including titles created from the first card sort and a “My Account” card to determine what customers want to see and do specifically on the My Account page.

Research Goals

  • Learn about how customers group items so that we can refine the navigation of the My Account area
  • Identify navigation labels that might be difficult for customers to understand
  • Identify navigation items we may have misplaced in the current state
  • Uncover mental models of our customers to identify patterns of how they would expect pages to be placed
  • Identify what information and features customers expect to access from the My Account page

Value to Our Business

  • Inform future design decisions as we look to improve the information architecture on customer-facing pages
  • Increase customer satisfaction scores relating to ease-of-use and navigation once design changes are implemented
  • Increase customer confidence in their ability to self-serve once design changes are implemented

Value to Our Customers

  • Improved functionality of their My Account page
  • Improved navigation to areas outside of My Account

DESIGN UPDATES

IMPACT