Understandingthe challenge
Industry
- Water & utilities
Platform
- Web
Services
- UX research
- UX & UI design
- Prototyping & testing
- Design systems
Most people only think about their water company when something needs doing: a bill to check, a payment to make, a meter reading to send. For a lot of Northumbrian Water’s customers, that happens through their online account.
Over time, that account had become harder to use than it should be. People struggled to find where to do things, and simple tasks took more effort than they needed to. Northumbrian Water wanted to make it clearer and easier, without losing the brand their customers know.
We did not guess at the problems, we went and found them. A usability audit, one-to-one interviews with customers, personas and journey maps, and a look at how other providers handle the same jobs. That told us exactly where people were getting stuck.
From there we redesigned the core flows, the account dashboard, bills and payments, meter readings and usage, then tested them with real customers and refined from what we saw. We worked within their existing brand, and delivered the whole thing as high-fidelity designs and a reusable component library, ready for their team to build across desktop, tablet and mobile.
Everyday admin like paying a water bill should be the easy part of someone’s day. The work here was mostly listening: watching where real customers got stuck, then designing that friction out, while keeping the brand they already trust. The component library means the team can carry that consistency across the rest of the account.
What we did
The result is a clearer, tested account experience and a reusable foundation the team can build from, everyday tasks that take less effort, designed around what customers actually do.
Found the real problems
A usability audit, customer interviews, personas and journey maps, so the redesign fixed what was actually getting in the way.
Redesigned the core jobs
Bills and payments, meter readings and usage, made clearer and quicker, tested with real customers before handover.
Kept the brand
A better experience inside the Northumbrian Water brand their customers already know.
Built to reuse
A component library and style guide, so the team can carry the same clarity across the rest of the account.
Komodo Digital approached our challenge with a design-led approach, carefully maintaining our existing brand while working within the limitations of redesigning only part of the website. They also provided valuable UX insights and practical recommendations to help our customers use their online accounts more easily and effectively.
