We enhance a user-centred design process with techniques that deliberately promote creativity to identify opportunities for the visualisation of data generated by a major energy supplier. Visualisation prototypes developed in this way prove effective in a situation whereby data sets are largely unknown and requirements open – enabling successful exploration of possibilities for visualization in Smart Home data analysis. It suggests: that the deliberate use of creativity techniques with data stakeholders is likely to contribute to successful, novel and effective solutions; that being explicit about creativity may contribute to designers developing creative solutions; that using creativity techniques early in the design process may result in a creative approach persisting throughout the process. The work constitutes the first systematic visualisation design for a data rich source that will be increasingly important to energy suppliers and consumers as Smart Meter technology is widely deployed. 

Data seem set to play an increasingly prominent role in the design of new products or services. Here we will outline on-going research exploring how information visualization can be used to make these data more accessible and engaging to key stakeholder representatives during design workshops. The objective of these workshops being to identify ideas for design requirements that are both novel and appropriate, and therefore considered creative. We illustrate this research with details of a workshop held with customers and staff of E.ON Energy in which the objective was to design new services that utilise the data generated by smart energy meters.