Hess Microgen CONIFER

Hess Microgen, a subsidiary of global energy giant Amerada Hess, is a pioneer in packaged cogeneration: they provide generators that run cleanly on natural gas an provide heat, power, and even chilled water. Hess Microgen's nationwide network of generators had no convenient way to be monitored or serviced remotely. They also needed their network of machines to tie into a central repository for all operational data, tariff and billing schedules, and mechanisms for entering and updating account information.

I created the information architecture, information design, and visual design for Fluid, Inc.'s solution, codenamed CONIFER. It was a thick-client intranet application that interfaced via wireless modems to embedded, hardenened computers (also created by Fluid). The application featured balanced reporting on, and configuring of, hundreds of pieces of complex operational and tariff data with the needs of fairly non-technical front office users.

I also produced in a couple of visualizations that explain how cogeneration works, done in Flash, with informative rollovers to demystify the process. These can be found on the Hess Microgen Web site.

We did the entire project in six months, requiring some pretty extreme acquisition of domain knowledge on commercial energy billing and tariff systems. The only other user interface projects I've done that were this challenging, in terms of complexity, were the Avery Photo ID System and the Reuters Sales Tool.