The story behind the first intelligent gas bottle
In a partnership with Galp, we improved the value proposition of the new Pluma intelligent bottle.
We designed its entire digital experience in the Mundo Galp app, focusing on the consumer perspective.
The story behind the first intelligent gas bottle
Galp Energia is a Portuguese multinational energy corporation headquartered in Lisbon.
Sector
What we did
The challenge
A pot of rice is placed on the stove. Maria, 50, turns on the gas, thinking she will finish the bottle to make dinner. Not to worry—she has two more gas bottles at home, ready to be used. But to rest easy, Maria stores bottles that take up space inside her house.
The biggest challenge for those without piped gas is knowing how much gas is left in the bottles. Storing bottles and shaking them are just some strategies for overcoming this problem.
In 2021, more than 2.6 million Portuguese households used bottled gas, almost half of which were Galp’s. With this responsibility in mind, Galp created a solution that promises to change the Portuguese home's consumption of bottled gas: the first intelligent bottle. By connecting to the Mundo Galp app, customers can find out how much gas they have left in the bottle whenever they want.
This is where Tangível comes in. As a Galp partner designing the interface that connects technology to people, Tangível will help breathe life into this idea. The proposal was a success in France and quickly expanded into Spain. Portugal and Belgium would be the following destinations.
Galp and Tangível: integrate innovative technology into the daily routine of the Portuguese people
The challenge that Galp had in hand was to humanize technology. How could a physical object be connected to a digital product? And how could you make people feel like they were “looking” inside a gas bottle?
The task called for someone with deep insight who could reach out to people. For this reason, Galp chose the human-centered methodology of Tangível, convinced that understanding users was one of the most important parts of bringing this idea to life.
The Tangível team, consisting of two service designers and two UX/UI designers, joined the 50 members of Galp in this project to determine how to integrate this innovative technology into the daily routine of the Portuguese people.
Why Tangível?
Tangível is a company that specializes in interaction design topics, which is hard to find in Portugal. Furthermore, it has a mature structure and methodology, primarily in research and UX.Rita PereiraHead of Digital OfficeGalp
1100 hours of dedication
With a challenge aimed at such an extensive audience, we began by understanding the solution's potential impact. Over the project's seven months, we used diverse research and testing methods.
From the outset, we understood the importance of putting ourselves in consumers' shoes. So, we invested in the research, definition, and ideation phases to develop the current and future journeys of those using the new Pluma.
We traveled Portugal from north to south and coast to inland to interview users of bottled gas at home, listening to them recount their experiences.
To understand these users’ reality, we analyzed the bottled gas market in Portugal. To do so, we carried out extensive comparative analyses. We also studied existing documentation on the topic, which gave us a broader view of the market and the business impact of this product.
Activities and tools
The process
Autonomy and preparedness – what is important to the Portuguese
As soon as she had retrieved her last gas bottle, Maria went to the fuel station to buy another. Since it’s close to home, she carefully rolls the bottle along the ground, which is always easier than carrying it on her back. This is the routine of many Portuguese people.
Our research revealed some interesting insights on users, which we now highlight below. Users:
- keep one to six spare bottles at home;
- collect bottles because they don’t know how much gas they have;
- transport and install bottles by themselves;
- are concerned about safety.
These findings and many others strengthen and bolster the concept and features of the intelligent bottle and demonstrate how it would make the Portuguese people’s lives easier.
The digital component focused on simplifying the app's association with the bottle and daily gas management.
A simple dashboard solves the inability to foresee available gas and the need to collect bottles in the startup screen, where the customer can see the percentage of gas available. Buttons are added to the dashboard to “replace” and “pair,” simplifying the exchange of an empty bottle and the installation of a new one. Details such as temperature and weight offer security and comfort, which are essential in this context.
The app’s screens have been designed iteratively, streamlining validation with stakeholders and building a more robust proposition. In the second round of tests, we used a final bottle prototype and mockups of the screens to evaluate the entire experience from start to finish.
Preventing rework
Tangível really helped us understand how customers interact with the bottle. For example, we created an initial design for the new Pluma but had to revise it after discovering that customers couldn’t tell the difference between it and the previous one.Rita PereiraHead of Digital OfficeGalp
A discovery at every step
With our findings guiding us, we moved on to the definition phase, where we identified the key points of the experience and planned the interaction flows. We mapped consumers' journeys and identified the issues, opportunities, and desires to help build their future journeys.
The future journey is divided into two phases: the physical interaction when installing the bottle and the digital interaction with its mobile app.
When planning touchpoints between the app and the bottle, we realized the critical importance of physical artifacts in the experience.
For instance, to associate the bottle with the app, we would have to locate components on the bottle (e.g., a QR Code). The installation of the bottle itself affects this process. These findings are only possible through testing, in the laboratory or the field, prototypes with actual consumers.
From this stage, we obtained data to determine how to design the instruction disk and iconography placed on top of the bottle.
To ensure that all of this is easy to understand and will help customers install the bottle and give them the confidence to use the app, we validated these proposals through user testing.
A kitchen in a lab
Nothing says home like the kitchen, where the family gets together, and we create memories with our parents, children, grandparents, and friends. To test the first versions of the prototype, we transformed our UXLab into a kitchen and invited users to join us at the table.
Conducting tests with users was a challenging experience for our team, who built a kitchen set in a single day with a generous helping of imagination. Tables were turned into counters, furniture became sinks, and sheets of paper were transformed into appliances.
In this “remodeled kitchen,” we observed participants picking up bottles and connecting hoses to reducers, and they seemed right at home.
We watched them perform a series of predefined tasks with the help of a moderator and an observer and saw how they interacted with the bottle, how they installed it, and how they would use the app in a real-life setting.
The Galp team observed all of this in the UX Lab observation room or remotely via Zoom, hearing actual users talk about their experiences managing a basic need such as power and how they would do it with this new solution.
The take away
On 21 November 2022, Galp proudly unveiled the new Pluma to the Portuguese market. The positive reception of this novelty encouraged us to continue working with Galp to improve its solutions.
Galp is now one of our long-term partners, and we will keep working to improve its products every day.
Based on actual user data and feedback from people, we are working to develop the Galp World app according to the needs of the Portuguese people.
With Galp, we were part of a project that connected the physical with the digital to bring the first intelligent gas bottles to the homes of more than two million families.
In the faces of many users with whom we spoke, in contextual interviews, and over seven months of work, we witnessed the curiosity and amazement inspired by this intelligent bottle. Intelligent because an old problem can be solved using technology. Intelligent because it is focused on people, their needs, and desires.
Testimony
We rely on Tangível to revamp our digital products and bring a more scientific approach to UX/UI topics. As a result, we believe this will help spread awareness within the organization about the importance of these areas for achieving our commercial goals.