Recent Projects
Client
Owned by the State Government of Victoria, Yarra Valley Water provides water supply and sewerage services to over 1.5 million people who live and work in the Yarra River catchment area of Melbourne.
Overview
As part of the Victorian State Government's 'Target 155' initiative, August was engaged by Yarra Valley Water to design, develop and deploy a sophisticated yet easy-to-use online water usage calculator, providing users with a visual map showing a breakdown of their home water usage, per activity (showering, laundry etc)
You can view the water calculator at www.watercalculator.com.au
Making Easy to Use
The key challenge of this project was ensuring the application was easy-to-use and non time intensive, in an effort to maximise online participation. Online visitors are notoriously impatient and will not wait for slow downloads, or engage in long, drawn-out online activities that are 'clunky' or difficult to navigate.
Answer the Questions and View Instant Results
August custom-designed and built a clever and engaging online application enabling users to calculate home water usage through answering a series of lifestyle and behaviour-related questions, and then provides an instant personal results graph to show the breakdown of usage per activity (showering, laundry etc). August managed the integration of the system into their high-traffic primary Yarra Valley Water customer website (www.yvw.com.au).
Importantly, the application provides Yarra Valley Water with a valuable database of customer input data that can easily be analysed to improve the accuracy and functionality of the Calculator, as well as providing a better understanding of customer appliance ownership and behaviours.
Result
- Used by over 5000 Yarra Valley Water customers to date
- Reduced in-bound customer service calls related to water use
- Empowers visitors to self-monitor water consumption against typical usage for similar households
- Stimulates interest in home water conservation
- Allows Yarra Valley Water customer service to check water consumption disputes against typical use
