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Designing a companion app to ‘power’ great experiences

Fortress Power’s Guardian app redesign repositioned the company as a leader in hardware for residential power backup.

Fortress Power Iphone Image
  • Hardware
  • IoT
  • UI
  • Design
  • User Testing
  • Figma
POWERING THE WAY:

Breaking through hardware complexity with beautiful software

The residential battery back-up and power solutions market has been dominated by heavy marketing from folks like Tesla with their Powerwall. How do you break through the fluff when you’ve got the better technical solution?

Fortress Power, maker of lithium iron solutions (different and better than lithium ion!) used smart and simple Apps for both installers and home owners to ensure a great end to end experience. Homeowners get the best hardware, controllable and customizable right through their smartphone.

Fortress Power Mobiles

Germinate-Powered App Design Process

Fortress Power asked Germinate to facilitate multiple design sprints to break down the challenge. How can we get the most out of a clear hardware advantage? We started with user interviews of everyone involved, and this led to an interesting discovery - we needed more than one app!

Germinate recommended a dual-interface approach — one for installers and another for homeowners. If the install did not go well, it would not matter how slick the homeowner app looked. By starting with a clear and simple installer interface, we could set the homeowner up for success. The homeowner app provides a smooth transition to daily use of the battery backup system. Homeowners can easily understand and optimize security, expense and convenience, all at their finger tips.

Fortress Power Germinate Powered

Unleashing the power to energize the process for great results

The Challenge

1. How do we make a hardware product easy and fun to use?
2. Complicated, multi step installation can make or break the product’s usability
3. Lots of configuration options need to be simplified into value for the homeowner user

Our Strategy

1. User interviews across the journey
2. Rapid prototyping and market testing to reach product market fit
3. Human-centered design

The Solution

1. A dual app approach to serve two very different but critical users in the chain of success
2. Figma for rapid prototyping and design systems for smooth integration
3. Dev support for design fidelity in implementation

UX/UI focused

User tests were created to improve the UX and to ensure a correct user flow. The UI was designed with a user-centered approach to prioritize the user's needs at all times.

Easy to set up and have an overall view

Screens that guide the User in an easy way to allow them to be informed and in control of their own Home system.

Fortress Power Hero

“The design team at Germinate exceeded our expectations. They led us through a clear process and helped us untangle a complicated problem. We’re engineers at heart, and appreciated the way they translated features and data into usable and valuable interfaces.” 

William Gathright, CIO, Fortress Power

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