GeekGirl Meets Alice Tyler, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Open Utility

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GeekGirl sits down with Alice Tyler in the latest GeekGirl Meets podcast, this time hearing all about product design. Alice joined Open Utility in a co­founder role in 2013, bringing the user to the centre of the company’s products and approach. Alice has a particular passion for turning complicated scenarios into simple user interactions. She brings this design thinking to all processes, from daily tasks to hiring and team happiness. To date, Alice and her co­founders have grown the team to 9 people, including developers, designers, sales and marketing members. They have secured £800K in funding, including a £310K grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Energy Entrepreneurs Fund. The startup has also gathered a number of accolades since inception. Open Utility has been named Startup of the Year in the Initiate Awards at European Utility Week 2015, and in 2014, announced as one of the 2014 Nominet Trust 100, Green Startup to Watch 2014 by Greenwise Business, and “Rising Star 2014” by Founders Forum for Good. At work, and at home, Alice is committed to reducing her own carbon footprint ­ a theme that runs throughout Alice’s 7 years experience designing digital products, services and experiences. During her time at More Associates, Alice worked on a Carbon Culture user­centred behaviour change pilot, analysing how users of an office building could reduce energy consumption at work through fun and engaging methods. Longer ­term, Alice sees Open Utility playing an instrumental role in updating the energy industry. She is driven by empowering people to use their electricity more efficiently while improving how people interact with energy. Resources mentioned in Podcast: User Testing Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-it-yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems by Steve Krug Designing a company Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness by Frederic UX process Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience by Jeff Gothelf The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Buley Understanding humans Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Growing veg The New Kitchen Garden: How to Grow Some of What You Eat No Matter Where You Live by Mark Diacono RHS Grow for Flavour: Tips & tricks to supercharge the flavour of homegrown harvests by James Wong Twitter: https://twitter.com/altyler Website: https://www.openutility.com/