We work with electricity, gas, water, and renewable providers, as well as technology and infrastructure partners, to design tools and experiences that empower users and strengthen core operations. From early discovery work through to service design, UX/UI design, prototyping, and usability testing, we provide an end-to-end design capability grounded in sector knowledge and engineering insight.
Our goal is to ensure every digital touchpoint—whether internal tooling, field service workflows, customer platforms, or control room dashboards—is practical, usable, and aligned with the unique demands of energy and utilities environments.
Understanding Research and Design in Energy & Utilities
Digital products in energy and utilities must work reliably across diverse and often high-stakes environments. Field teams rely on mobile tools that withstand harsh conditions, control centres depend on accurate data visualisation, and customers expect modern, self-service experiences. Designing systems that support these users requires a deep understanding of operational contexts, regulatory constraints, asset-heavy workflows, and safety-critical processes.
Research and design enable organisations to uncover user needs, validate early ideas, and translate complex operations into intuitive digital solutions. This includes mapping end-to-end journeys, identifying process inefficiencies, understanding on-site challenges, and designing interfaces that support quick, informed decision-making. The outcome is digital products that not only look modern but actively improve operational performance and reduce risk.
Our Research and Design Process
Our process begins with discovery, where we work closely with your teams to understand your users, operational contexts, regulatory obligations, and system constraints. We conduct interviews, workshops, field observations, and stakeholder mapping to build a complete picture of how your teams and customers interact with current tools and processes. This insight forms the foundation for identifying opportunities and prioritising design improvements.
From there, we create service blueprints, user journeys, and conceptual models that define how your product or service should work. We prototype interfaces at varying levels of fidelity to test assumptions, validate ideas, and ensure the final design is grounded in real operational needs. Throughout this phase, we collaborate closely with engineering teams to ensure design decisions align with technical feasibility, system architectures, and integration requirements.
Before moving into delivery, we conduct usability testing and iterate on designs to ensure the solution is accessible, intuitive, and aligned with user expectations. This process ensures that when your product or service moves into build, it is supported by validated insights, strong design thinking, and a clear understanding of the value it will deliver.
Benefits of Research and Design
Effective research and design reduce project risk by ensuring digital solutions are shaped around the needs of the people who use them. For energy and utilities organisations, this results in tools that improve operational efficiency, minimise human error, and support safer workflows—whether in the field, the control room, or customer service environments.
By validating assumptions early, organisations avoid costly rework and ensure that product teams focus on features that genuinely add value. Clear user journeys and interface designs simplify training, speed up adoption, and help teams work more effectively with new systems. Strong design practices also support long-term scalability, allowing digital solutions to evolve alongside operational and regulatory needs.
For customers, user-centred design enhances service quality and provides a modern, intuitive experience across billing, metering, renewable services, and outage reporting. Ultimately, research-driven design creates solutions that are easier to use, safer to operate, and better aligned with strategic objectives.
Why Choose 6B for Research and Design?
Experience designing digital services for asset-heavy, safety-critical environments across energy and utilities.
Deep understanding of field operations, engineering workflows, and system constraints that influence product design.
Research methods tailored to real-world contexts, including on-site observation, workflow analysis, and operator testing.
Collaboration between designers, engineers, and architects to ensure feasibility and alignment with integration and data requirements.
Strong focus on accessibility, usability, and regulatory alignment across all digital touchpoints.
Estimate the Cost of Your Research and Design Project
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Want to speak to someone today? Call 6B on 0113 350 1290.
Readiness Checklist for Research and Design
- Identify the user groups or teams your product or service must support.
- Document current pain points, inefficiencies, or operational challenges affecting your workflows.
- Confirm any regulatory, safety, or compliance requirements that must influence design.
- Prepare any existing documentation, prototypes, or interface designs currently in use.
- Outline the systems or processes your solution must integrate with.
- Identify key stakeholders who should be involved in research and validation sessions.
- Consider technical, operational, or environmental constraints that may shape design decisions.
Speak To Our Research and Design Experts
Whether you're developing a new digital energy product or extending an existing solution with Research and Design, 6B brings the technical expertise, energy and utilities insight, and experience needed to accelerate delivery.
