JOTSON
How opportunity trees led to a contract comparison tool and an app's first 1,000 subscribers
PRODUCT STRATEGY
CUSTOMER DISCOVERY
UX RESEARCH
01
Getting buy-in by speaking your decision-makers language
WHEN I JOINED the project, Jotson was still in the early stages of validating its market fit. The CEO and COO had assumptions about their target audience, but there was no structured way to test and validate these hypotheses.
To manage stakeholder expectations, I developed a customer discovery roadmap, aligning our approach with the customer development model:
1. Customer discovery – Identify user needs, motivations, and behaviors
2. Customer validation – Test assumptions through qualitative research
3. Customer creation – Design solutions that align with validated needs
4. Company building – Scale the product based on proven demand
My primary focus was in phases 1 & 2, where I worked closely with the leadership team to define who the users are, what outcomes they seek, and what product capabilities would enable those outcomes.
Snapshot overview of the customer discovery roadmap strategy and the intended target audience. It includes an intro primer to introduce the stakeholders to the customer development model before I conducted a walkthrough of the opportunity trees and the roll out plan for the research intake. The green segments are proposed app functions and features that supports the steps a user may take to achieve their intended outcomes.
tl;dr
THE PROBLEM
Jotson, an energy management app, needed to define and validate their product’s direction by understanding their target users’ behaviors, motivations, and pain points.
The leadership team (CEO & COO) required a structured approach to customer discovery that would inform product development and guide strategic decision-making.
MY APPROACH
Developed a customer discovery roadmap structured around the customer development model
Mapped opportunity trees to align user goals, behaviors, and product functionality
Led six months of qualitative user interviews
Synthesized findings into a prioritized action plan, ranking usability issues and feature opportunities as high, mid, or low
THE RESULT
Created a customer discovery framework that continues to shape Jotson’s product roadmap
Identified a key insight: users equated energy management with cost savings, leading to the development of a contract comparison tool
Addressed usability issues for older demographics by refining data visualizations and font scaling to improve readability
z
02
Narrowing the focus with opportunity trees
To bridge the gap between assumptions and real user needs, I built Opportunity Trees, a framework that maps:
User outcomes – What are they trying to achieve?
Behaviors & actions – What actions do they take to reach their goals?
Product interventions – How can the app support these behaviors?
IMPACT
This provided a clear mental model for stakeholders, ensuring that feature decisions were grounded in user insights rather than assumptions.
For example, through our research, we discovered that users saw energy management as primarily a cost-saving tool, which led to the eventual development of the contract comparison tool—a feature that allowed users to compare energy plans and optimize costs.
Detail of one of the opportunity trees that maps out our assumption of what the user is looking to solve and the potential paths they need to take to solve it
Snapshot of the roll out plan with the interview questions templates
03
Maximizing research efforts even with modest means
Given budget constraints, I proposed a lean research strategy using:
Backyard FGT (Focus Group Testing) – Reaching out to friends & family to gather initial user insights
Roadshows & field research – Conducting interviews with residents from Canmore, a community already transitioning to carbon-zero living
SOLUTION
Between late 2023 to mid-2024, we ran a structured qualitative research study, which included:
Interview booking & setup
User research scripts & recording setup
Collaboration with another designer to annotate and synthesize findings
Presentation of findings to the CEO & COO
Snapshot of some of the interviews conducted online
Glimpse of the collected interviews and the analysis we did
04
Key insights & design implications
The interviews uncovered critical usability and perception gaps, such as:
1. Legibility & data visualization issues
❗️
Older users increased font sizes on their phones, causing data visualizations to break and run off-screen
We locked aspect ratios and set fixed font sizes to preserve readability
2. Carbon footprint confusion
❗️
Users didn’t understand if their carbon footprint score was “good” or “bad”
We introduced benchmarks to provide clearer insights
3. Cost savings as the primary driver
❗️
Users cared less about eco-consciousness and more about how much money they could save
This led to the contract comparison tool, a feature that helped users find the most cost-effective energy plan
IMPACT
These insights directly influenced product decisions and improved the usability of Jotson’s energy management app.
Annotated view of the old HQ, the landing screen in the app
Based on insights from the customer discovery research, we improved the design for better usability, added an onboarding flow to guide users at set up, added new educational resource interactive articles to support user engagement and better understanding of energy management
Screen recording of the new Analytics section with richer data breakdown, color coded for easier distinction and improved functionality
Improved carbon data contextualization with a clear call to action to a resource article that helps gives users more knowledge on understanding carbon emission data
Screen recording of the Contract Comparison Toolkit on the app
UPCOMING CASE STUDY
An in depth case study of the design work I did on the Contract Comparison Toolkit is coming soon!
SHELDON MANABAT
SR. SOFTWARE DEVELOPER, JOTSON
At Jotson, Trace made a lasting impact across multiple fronts. She was instrumental in our product design efforts—collaborating closely with Michelle, our in-house designer, to deliver a clean and scalable design system that made development smooth and efficient.
Her customer discovery work—designing and administering surveys—helped us better understand our users and informed our roadmap in meaningful ways. She also has a fantastic visual sensibility and brought real polish to our product through her thoughtful approach to iconography and visual design. Her ability to balance design thinking with practical execution made her contributions incredibly valuable from both a product and engineering perspective.
05
Impact & measurable outcomes
Short term impact:
The customer discovery roadmap became an ongoing reference for product planning
Prioritized usability fixes improved user experience
Jotson gained clarity on user motivations, leading to the contract comparison tool
LONG-TERM IMPACT
Surpassed 1,000 subscribers by late 2024, exceeding company goals
The contract comparison tool became a key growth driver
The COO continues to refer to the Opportunity Trees for future product direction
06
What I learned
This project reinforced how the presentation of information in a language already familiar to your decision makers help a lot with getting buy-in. Even with a mature team, there is still a tendency to default to personal opinions and gut feel when deciding on which product feature to develop.
This is where a strong, objective framework can help democratize the decision-making. Specifically, it allowed me to demonstrate how:
Opportunity Trees are powerful alignment tools that help bridge business strategy with user needs
Qualitative research can be scrappy yet effective, even without a big budget
User motivations can define more than one type of product feature. The resource articles were not as engaging as originally hoped but with the combination of a data-rich contract comparison tool, the resource articles now provided contextual support for users.
SHOUTOUTS TO—
Michelle Walstra - For being an amazing copilot! For jumping in to the deep end while the project was already more thank halfway through. For bringing her deep UX insights and enriching our research and making it even more impactful.
Mark Little - For doing the heavy work of being the face of the brand and leading the much needed field work in Canmore and all over Alberta. For supporting the CDR work and recognizing the value user research brings to the product. For being a truly down-to-earth nice guy!
Remus Lacatus - For being an amazing client, manager, and all around good human. For recognizing the role of design and where good design offers value in the product. For holding space for different perspectives and nurturing it to the benefit of the team and to the product.
