Case Study: Xcel Energy's Bulb finder
Location, location, location and ADA Compliance for 8 million customers.
Location, location, location and ADA Compliance for 8 million customers.
Bulb Finder was a tool designed to help users find the right replacement lightbulbs for various fixtures. However, its original interface relied heavily on complex HTML tables to display bulb specifications, compatibility, and retailer pricing. On desktop, these tables were barely manageable, but on mobile, they became virtually unusable—requiring horizontal scrolling, pinching, and zooming.
There was no ability to filter, sort, or determine if customers needed a large fixture or a single bulb. The lack of screen reader compatibility, poor keyboard navigation, and missing semantic HTML structures also made the experience inaccessible for users with disabilities, violating federal ADA compliance standards and alienating a large segment of potential users, negatively affecting overall brand perception.
I had to make so many concessions to balance usability, accessibility, and technical limitations. Rather than eliminating the table structure entirely, I teamed up with ADA specialists to adapt it.. I designed icons for scalability, created copy that was understood by all, and created a multi-step user flow to filter by bulb type and by store location.
I designed each component, allowing them to be rebuilt with semantic HTML, ARIA attributes, and tab-friendly interactions. Some original features were removed or simplified to avoid creating barriers for screen reader users. While not every legacy requirement could be carried over, our focus remained on meeting WCAG 2.1 AA standards and ensuring the core task—finding and comparing bulbs—was intuitive across devices and ability levels.
The redesign was a successful collaboration between product, business owners, and customers. I worked with teammates to compliment Salesforce backend solutions, UX best practices, and add research-based improvements. Most notably, by avoiding a potential ADA-related lawsuit, my work on Bulb Finder project saved the company over $9 million in legal, staffing, and operational costs.
