The customer
In light of the energy purpose of 2050, VEA (the Flemish Energy Agency) wants to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient. The energy performance certificate (EPC) indicates how much energy is lost in a building due to the absence of sufficient insulating or the right energy generators. When selling or renting out a building it is mandatory for the owner to present this certificate to the buyer or tenant.
The challenge
VEA asked us to take on the challenge to rethink the existing EPC document. Not only did we redesign the look and feel of the document, together with the project team of VEA we decided to change the content of the document to give it more purpose. In this way we can give home owners insights in what should be improved to their houses without them having to be renovation experts. With this certificate in hand, people are able to make informed decisions to renovate their homes.
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The quest
The challenge in this project was to turn a document that was rather complex into a document that should encourage people to opt for more energy efficient alternatives. To achieve this, we examined the previous document thoroughly and defined what made the document so unclear, such as technical terms, unclear values, ... We converted these elements into comprehensible and motivating information. For example, we opted to add labels to the EPC score to make it more visible and understandable. With every alteration in design or content, we involved the VEA project team and citizens. We organised multiple user tests throughout the entire project period in which we verified whether we took the right design decisions.
The result
The result is an understandable document that encourages people to make the right renovation decisions for their home. We made sure that the whole diverse population of Flanders was taken into account. This project is truly a perfect example of how the involvement of the end user when creating a product leads to the best result.
You can find more information about the new EPC-document on this website.
