
Human Insights
Understanding Behavior, Building Empathy, Driving Change.
ILLUME’s Human Insights Practice Area combines thoughtful research and strategic solutions to help you uncover the nuances of human behavior, culture, and market dynamics. We utilize diverse disciplinary perspectives—from anthropology to behavioral economics to cognitive science to linguistics—to make sense of human and market behaviors. Our collaborative approach and attention to storytelling ensure you have actionable insights that foster empathy with your customers, influence markets, and create impact.
Our Services
Market Segmentation
We help you analyze the complexities of human behavior and help you define meaningful customer groups and personas for focused outreach. We use multiple methodologies to uncover critical insights capable of building awareness, shifting perceptions, and resolving pain points to guide you toward more inclusive and effective strategies.
Multicultural Research
Culture is a key factor in your customers’ perceptions and decision-making. We provide you with the research you need to bridge gaps and foster alignment between your work and the needs and concerns of the people and communities you serve.
Behavior-Change Research
ILLUME helps you decode the beliefs and motivations behind your customers’ actions, helping you integrate behavior-change strategies into your initiatives. Our researchers carefully design qualitative and quantitative studies as well as market tests to give you field-tested solutions that create meaningful impacts.
Customer Experience Strategy
Your customers’ experiences shape their trust and loyalty. Using tools like journey mapping, ethnographic interviewing, and stakeholder interviews, we create data-informed approaches to enhance your customer experience strategy. We deliver insights and strategies to help you design seamless, meaningful interactions that align with your strategic goals, elevate your brand, resonate with the people you serve, and impact key performance indicators like JD Power scores.
Communications Strategy
Clear, compelling communication drives understanding and action. We craft strategies that ensure your messages reach your audience effectively, inspiring engagement and building lasting connections. We do this by drawing on expertise in marketing, education, outreach tactics, and linguistics and through carefully designed A/B message testing.
Market Characterization and Transformation Consulting
We provide strategic design and consulting services in market characterization and transformation to help you deliver interventions that customers are eager to adopt and capable of achieving market scale. We bring a national perspective to market behaviors and dynamics, providing you with a clear understanding of market mechanics so your interventions are impactful and grounded in behavior-change theory.
EXPLORE Our Work
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Conferences
ACEEE Summer Study 2024
Conferences
Let’s Connect at ACEEE in Pacific Grove, CA, August 4-9, 2024. ILLUME will have multiple team members attending and presenting at…
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White Papers
This paper, written for ACEEE Summer Study 2024, will share the results of an expansive study focused on language-focused barriers and…
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White Papers
This paper summarizes the work the authors undertook to identify strategies and best practices to consider as part of an equitable…
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White Papers
This whitepaper references research done for leading utilities across the U.S., highlighting the approaches and course corrections pioneering programs incorporated to…
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Presentations
Building Trust and Demonstrating Value
Presentations
In this presentation—given at the Utility Energy Forum (UEF) 2024 in Cambria, California—Executive Vice President, Jes Rivas will be speaking about…
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Presentations
NEUAC: ILSFA Small Residential Barriers
Presentations
Mallika Jayaraman, and co-presenters from Elevate and Illinois Power Agency (IPA), presented Removing Barriers to Residential Solar: Illinois Solar for All…
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Presentations
EFX24: Ramping Up Residential
Presentations
In this presentation given at the Efficiency Exchange 2024 (EFX24) Conference, Mallika talks about using human insights to enhance residential program…
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Case Studies
The ILLUME team led a research study to support the launch of SoCalREN’s new Food Desert Energy Efficiency Equity (FDEEE) program.
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Case Studies
ILLUME conducted an ethnographic research study to explore the magnitude of installation challenges for heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) in cold-climate…
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Articles
ILLUME’s recent participation at the 2023 Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change (BECC) conference showcased Director Dr. Liz Kelley’s presentation on induction…
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Reports
NEEA hired ILLUME Advising to pursue two concurrent studies around water heater installers. The first was intended to focus on observational…
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Case Studies
Heat Pump and Integrated Controls Performance Review
Case Studies
Heat pumps are on the rise in the Northeast, with Massachusetts offering incentives for electrifying home heating and reducing reliance on…
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Articles
Understanding Home Decision-Making
Articles
Residential buildings account for approximately 20% of energy consumption in the U.S. To achieve local, state, and federal decarbonization and electrification…
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Webinars
Why Good Ideas Fail
Webinars
Tune in to to see the Arizona Technology Council’s webinar featuring ILLUME Executive Vice President, Jes Rivas. Watch the webinar on-demand…
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Reports
This report presents findings from follow-up research conducted on integrated controls (ICs) used with ductless mini-split heat pumps (HPs). These dual-fuel…
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Case Studies
Rolling out dynamic pricing (or real-time pricing) rates is a challenge, but new rate designs will be increasingly necessary to address…
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Presentations
This presentation, presented at BECC 2023, will focus on the role of integrated controls in enabling residential customers to adopt heat…
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Case Studies
Many states, agencies, and utilities are entrusted with translating equity policies and goals into actionable strategies in their policies and programs.…
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Articles
We are living in a moment of transition as people are interacting with the grid, their utilities, and their energy use…
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Magazine Articles
The Great Decarbonization
Magazine Articles
Our fourth volume of the ILLUME Magazine, “The Great Decarbonization,” is an inspirational collection of articles, interviews, and ideas we believe…
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Magazine Articles
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Case Studies
Testing the Efficacy of Home Energy Reports
Case Studies
Drawing on statistical methods from biomedical research, ILLUME applied meta-analysis techniques to measure savings from home energy report (HER) programs to…
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Case Studies
Connecting with Communities
Case Studies
Expanding engagement to create more inclusive programs. With a novel and engaging research approach, ILLUME identified strategies for an electric utility…
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White Papers
Tunnel Vision
White Papers
The Impact of Ignoring Behavior in Technological Innovation. In this white paper presented at the ACEEE Summer Study 2022 Conference, the…
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Reports
In this evaluation of the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) Program for San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) ILLUME took…
Sharing Their Knowledge
Meet Our Experts
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Alexandra Dunn
Senior Director
Dr. Alex Dunn is a cognitive scientist and psycholinguist with more than a decade of experience helping clients understand human behavior and its impact on energy programs and services with a focus on rate…
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Liz Kelley
Senior Director
Dr. Liz Kelley is an anthropologist with nearly 15 years of experience specializing in ethnographic and qualitative research to address her clients’ policy, program, and customer engagement investments across energy domains and technologies.