Appliance Cost Comparison Calculator
The energy cost crisis meant a lot of users turned to us for advice on how they could save money, and we knew this journey stated with helping people understand where they were energy costs were coming from in their home.
We had an existing tool that was difficult to update, fully reliant on javascript and suffering from some accessibilty issues. With an original plan to replace the tool on a like for like basis, I spoke to the team about progressive enhancement and how a step by step journey would be easier for the user (something we discovered during a different project earlier in the year).
I rebuilt the app using Rails with some progressively enhanced javascript that allows the app to be embedded in an advice page on the site. During development, I worked with my tech lead to decide where the app should be built, ultimately deciding on making part of the same app that powers our customer service ratings table. You can read about this decision in the ADR, it felt correct at the time but I wonder whether I have made the app as a whole confusing for a new developer.
