Entergy
Background
Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged in electric power production, transmission and retail distribution operations. Entergy delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy owns and operates one of the cleanest large-scale U.S. power generating fleets with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power.
As customer expectations evolve and disruption within the industry accelerates, Entergy wanted to provide its customers with a mobile app solution that would scale to meet changing demands. Mindgrub designed, developed and delivered a native iOS and Android application, enhancing the customer experience.
Our Approach
As part of our “Sprint 0” discovery process, we conducted a comprehensive review of all branding materials and competitors’ applications, and performed an API audit and technical assessment. We used information gathered from 150 ethnographic interviews conducted by Entergy’s market research group to better understand their unique customer base and establish the necessary functional requirements to meet and exceed customer expectations.
To identify all possible user types, we defined and documented user personas and user stories. Once we finalized the layout of the app screens, workflows, and functionality, we used Entergy’s branding guidelines and style guide to design each element of the app.
Bold visual design, custom software development, and strategic systems integrations are fundamental to creating an engaging digital experience.
Powerful Self-Service Functionality
After we designed and built the following key features, we employed a rigorous quality assurance testing process including integration, system, load/volume, and user acceptance testing to ensure a high level of performance and scalability.
A Harmoniously Integrated Ecosystem
We developed a custom API layer between Entergy’s existing backend architecture and the mobile app. This allows us to collect the data provided by Entergy’s various systems and format it into a parsable structure to be consumed by the applications. Managing this portion of the process has increased our ability to monitor performance and provide Entergy with additional support.
Facilitated by Amazon Web Services (e.g., AWS Lambda, AWS S3, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS CloudWatch), here are just some of the systems that work in concert to create a seamless and secure app experience.
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TIBCO Middleware
Provides a single point of communication with the mobile app and Entergy’s backend, allowing the app to easily communicate with third-party systems
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Advanced Metering
Allows eligible users to view daily and monthly usage data, and non-advanced meter users to view their monthly usage
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Salesforce
Controls account sign-in, manages preferences, and notifications
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DataCapable
Tracks real-time outages throughout Entergy territory using data insights and the outage map
Accessible by Design
Our cross-functional team leveraged a deep understanding of digital accessibility best practices to ensure that the application meets 508/ADA compliance standards.
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Screen readers and text-to-speech features (VoiceOver in iOS and Standard Text to Speech API in Android)
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User interface enhancements (e.g., touchscreen input)
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Textual metadata for all image controls
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Color inversions, high contrast, and grayscale color options
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Zoom functionality and large font size support