Breakerbox

I helped lead the Breakerbox design team during their 2019 launch, transforming an IDEO CoLab venture concept into reality through collaboration with Exelon and IDEO teams. Breakerbox evolved from a standard energy marketplace into a digital energy consultancy offering concierge-level service to small and medium businesses in an industry plagued by paper contracts, questionable broker practices, and transactional supplier relationships. The initial product featured a location-based onboarding approach rather than a dashboard-driven experience, presenting users with personalized contract options and decision-making tools typically hidden by traditional brokers, including live market conditions and utility prices. We developed sophisticated data visualizations for market price tracking, giving users comprehensive future price projections for informed purchasing decisions. Though we initially focused on usage monitoring with heatmaps for anomaly detection and metrics like capacity setting events and weather-related spikes, we later prioritized contract facilitation based on market needs. Our contract comparison feature underwent numerous iterations, ultimately becoming part of an onboarding experience allowing purchases without account creation. Before hiring their first two designers, I established the initial component library, which evolved into a comprehensive Figma design system with auto-flow components and accessible color palettes. To address the knowledge gap between experienced and novice customers, we created educational materials explaining energy supplier/distributor relationships through various iterations of illustrations and animations. Before departing, I designed a screen-printed poster for the team and initiated a design ritual of creating mini-posters for each launch location, while also developing the marketing site featuring product illustrations, a demo video, and educational modules.