Australian Energy Regulator (AER)
Annex worked with AER to name, brand, design and build the Energy Innovation Toolkit website.
The Energy Innovation Toolkit is a service offered by the Australian Government to help launch new energy business ideas into the market. It helps energy innovators orient themselves in the complex energy market, understand energy regulations and which energy sector stakeholders need to be contacted. Innovations are supported to become reality through proof-of-concept trials, which provide relief from regulatory barriers.
Energy Innovators were finding it hard to understand complex regulations relevant to entering the Australian energy market with their new ideas, and didn’t know which government entity to turn to for clarification.
AER came to Annex with an idea to build a 'first stop shop' for Energy Innovators to see the licensing, authorisation, and registration requirements that apply to their business model, and for directions to further information. We partnered with AER to help them better understand the problem to be solved, then name, brand, design and deliver a website that would meet the needs of Energy Innovators.
The Annex team worked collaboratively with the AER to deliver an evidence-based solution that met the needs of Energy Innovators. We engaged extensively with users to understand their needs, current experience, regulatory understanding, and their expectations of the service. A brand name was selected through user testing, and website prototype testing informed and validated our approach.
The website is key to the promise of providing a clear path into the energy market, with helpful and targeted information backed by the expertise and independence of the AER and government partners. The information architecture, content, and visual design are balanced to suit the needs of those that understand energy regulation well, and those that don't
Informed by the insights gained from Discovery, the team developed an Information Architecture (IA) and supporting navigational structure that makes it easy for Energy Innovators to find relevant information and tools they need to achieve their goals. We designed a consistent structure and set of components that took into consideration requirements for both the first release and future state content.
We built a tool that helps Energy Innovators orient themselves in the complex Australian energy market. It’s a complex conditional form that our team built within Drupal, based on supplied inputs, that makes it easy to see which energy regulations may apply to a project or innovation idea. The tool is an essential part of the service, which our development team made incredibly easy for website administrators to manage the complex logic behind the scenes.
To support the strategy of making energy innovation easier, the brand is deliberately restrained and to the point. From the logo to the graphic elements, the tone is informative, approachable and modern – every choice is focused on providing access to clear and understandable information.
The gradient provides the brand with vibrancy and is given maximum impact by pairing it with simple white space. A clear tone of voice makes the brand feel helpful and trustworthy, with impactful illustrations inspired by diagrams and schematics of early stage ideas, that add a contemporary feeling to the brand both on and offline. The custom illustrations and icons that help engage energy innovators and effectively communicate the often complex information about entering the energy market in Australia.
Using Drupal, our team created a flexible admin experience for managing the navigation, pages, and repeatable components within the site. We made it easy for the AER team to add and edit the website over time, and created a custom integration of Google Analytics for the AER team to track engagement with specific areas of page content.
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A 'first stop shop' for energy innovators that helps them power ahead and enter the Australian energy market. The service provides users with relevant regulatory guidance, through interactive tools and use cases. This creates more informed innovators who are ready to enter the market with a solid understanding of the regulations that may impact their research, product, or service.
DISCOVERY
Service design
Workshops
Stakeholder engagement
Product definition
STRATERGY
Brand name
Prototype / concept testing
User research
User and usability testing
Brand name testing
Recommendations from user testing
Insights reports
Research reports
DESIGN
Branding
Illustration
UX Design
UI Design
Digital design guide
Brand style guide
DEVELOPMENT
Front and back-end development
Solution architecture
GovCMS Drupal development
Dynamic & interactive decision-making tools
Flexible website structure and page layout
Simple management of complex conditional logic
Insightful analytics
QUALITY ASSURANCE
Accessibility testing and remediation
Test strategy
Testing
Admin user guide
Content management training
