Energetics eBOK is the contact space between an Energy Cooperative and its members. They see yesterday's data from their own devices, settlements, outage communications, cooperative events, and complaints - a critical tool for transparency inside the cooperative.
eBOK sits inside the Electronic Energy Cooperative Management Platform, which pulls measurement data and energy profiles from CSIRE, settles and balances energy inside the cooperative, and gives boards real tools to deliver tangible savings. The platform serves the board, eBOK serves the member, and together they build trust on a shared set of numbers.
Two strong constraints: an existing technical web mockup dense with tables, and a directional ask from the founder for something modern and ambitious. No direct analogues on the market either - energy apps and generic e-bills covered the problem at 50% at best.
That meant two parallel learning tracks. We had to learn the energy cooperative model from scratch - both the energy mechanics and the business behind it - and the user side was unmapped too, since most entrepreneurs we interviewed had never heard of the concept. At the same time, we had to translate a desktop-first, data-heavy mockup into mobile without losing depth, with no existing patterns to lean on - every screen needed framing of what to keep, what to compress, and what to invent.
Six months for a product of this scope is not much. The process had to be optimized at every layer, and at several points it ran against textbook procedure. Not for fashion, but because the project shape demanded it.
The first weeks were research, not design. We talked to entrepreneurs running 50- to 60-person companies near Poznań, asking how they think about photovoltaics, energy bills, and what would make them join a cooperative. In parallel, the analyst used an LLM as an on-demand subject expert on CSIRE, settlements, and the regulatory environment. The model accelerated the learning curve in a domain new to the team. It did not replace conversations with real users.
Most projects start with wireframes. We did not. We jumped straight to hi-fi screens in colour, so the client and the team could see the real product from week one instead of abstract boxes. The existing web mockup gave us enough structural ground to skip the wireframe round entirely, which compressed the timeline and removed a whole loop of review on screens that would have been thrown away anyway.
This is not a default we recommend. It works only with a credible structural starting point and a senior team that can hold UX rigour at high fidelity - both conditions were true here.
The full-day workshop, normally a kick-off event, happened in the middle of the project. Eight perspectives - architecture, development, design, marketing, sales, accounting, product, settlements - sat in one room with real screens already on the table. Feedback was sharper, decisions faster, and the MVP shape solidified in a single day.
Around the workshop we ran without fixed sprints, mixing sync review calls with async video walkthroughs. This rhythm worked because the team was senior and self-directed - on a less experienced team, we would put hard sprint cadence back in.
"The pace and the quality of information exchange were ideal. The async video walkthroughs were a really good idea - you can listen calmly, pause, rewind. It would not have worked with a less senior team. With this one it fitted the flow perfectly."
Marcin Cichosz, Lead analyst and system architect
Three components carried most of the project's complexity. For each one, here is what we tried first, why it failed, and where we landed.
The hardest screen in the app. Three iterations to get there.
The complication was scale. A single PPE point can hold tens or hundreds of events, and the same component had to serve two scenarios at once: comparing several points and drilling into one. We iterated through several drafts before the cards model held both cases cleanly.
A user with one PPE point is easy. A user with hundreds is not. The screen had to absorb that range without overwhelming a 30-year-old founder skimming numbers on a phone, or a 65-year-old factory owner who only opens the app to check the bottom line.
We solved it with a layered filtering and aggregation model: defaults that surface the most useful comparisons first, controls that scale up to multi-point analysis when needed, and a visual rhythm that keeps the screen quiet at the top and dense further down.
The charts looked simple in the brief and turned out to be the most non-standard component in the system. Two edge cases broke the typical pattern.
The result is a small set of custom chart patterns built specifically for this app. They are less photogenic than a clean filled donut. They tell the truth.
Energetics eBOK is one of the few things I have seen in the past year that you can honestly call a game changer. Traditional portals only work after you become a customer. eBOK works the other way round - it gives value first, and the cooperative grows around it.
We had a healthy setup. I would propose a solution, the UX team would review it critically. They picked up on things in the user's mental model that I would have missed. I cared about whether the right information was on the screen. They cared about whether it was presented in a way the user could actually act on.
Iteration was the engine of the project. Better to ship a first cut and iterate than to polish a perfect version that ends up being changed anyway. With this team, that approach actually accelerated the work.
Marcin Cichosz, Lead analyst and system architect
eBOK is positioned as both a member portal and an acquisition channel for new cooperatives. The traditional portal model assumes you are already a customer. This product gives value before that point, and pulls people in.
A compressed delivery process (hi-fi from day one, workshop in the middle, MVP delivered in six months) that translates directly into a smaller budget and a shorter time to market. The handoff to the development partner (MicroSolutions) was clean enough that implementation moved without extra design support.
Energy cooperatives support efficiency, local independence, and the modernisation of the Polish grid by keeping more energy local. eBOK is the visible part of that shift for members.
Beyond the screens, here is what working with us actually meant for Energetics IT and the cooperative behind it.
Uxtivity team took on the role of user advocate, attentively evaluating every UX aspect of the app and proposing thoughtful, well-considered solutions.
The pace was ideal and design was clean enough that development picked it up without extra support. I would work with this team again without hesitation.
If your app, portal, or platform needs the same level of UX rigor and UI craft, our Product Design service is built for that.
