Technology + Creativity at the �� Feed

Feeling the weather: the future of the forecast?

2020-02-01T06:00:12+00:00

It’s well known that the UK loves talking about the weather. According to some anthropological studies, it is thought that over 90% of Brits have talked about the weather in the past six hours, with about 38% having talked about the weather in the last hour alone!

At the ��, we have been delivering the weather for over 65 years. In that time, audiences have gone from radio and TV weather forecasts, to accessing weather forecasts online and via mobile apps, and most recently have even started receiving personalised weather forecasts by speaking to their smart speakers.

Part of what we do at the �� is looking at how we can innovate by using new and emerging technologies and working with digital and technology companies to experiment with new types of audience experience. As new technologies continue to emerge, we wanted to see how they might enable our audiences to receive their weather forecasts in a completely new way.

For our most recent project, we have used haptic (touch) technologies and created an experimental device that lets you use your sense of touch to ‘feel’ the weather forecast. Imagine a situation where when you wake up in the morning and before you leave the house, instead of reaching for your phone to check the weather for the day, you place your hand in an alarm clock type device, ‘feel’ the weather forecast, and then know whether or not you need to take an umbrella with you for the day ahead.

The device that we created uses ultrasound waves to simulate - by touch - different weather conditions, ranging from the feeling of rain falling on your hand to the glow of sunshine on your skin and the sensation of snow falling on a winter’s day. We designed an internal prototype to give us an idea of how haptic technology like this might be used in the future to enable audiences to use their sense of touch to experience �� content, such as a weather forecast, in a completely new way.

Working with my colleague Spencer in R&D, who helped design and build the device, we put it to the test by showing it to a few people around our offices. Here is some footage of some of my colleagues (including some of our �� weather presenters) trying it out for the first time and an explanation of how it works:

Our 'feel the weather forecast' experiment

What is haptic technology?

Haptic technology is anything that uses the sense of touch to communicate. Haptics, in it its simplest form, has been with us for a while: almost all of us are now used to feeling our phone vibrate in our pockets to let us know that someone is trying to call or send us a message. Vibrating games controllers have also been used for many years to enhance the experience of computer games – for example, the controller vibrating against your hands as something explodes around you or to give you the sensation of being hit in a battle.

Our 'feel the weather forecast' haptics prototype device

Ultrasound waves

As haptics technology advances, so does the range of possible ways that it could be used in our daily lives.

The haptic touch technology that we experimented with was developed by the company Ultraleap and uses ultrasound, sound frequencies that the human ear can’t detect, to project sensations directly onto someone’s hands.

A picture that shows the ultrasound waves coming from our device impacting water

The feeling that these ultrasound waves deliver is similar to what you might imagine your hand would feel like if you had very focused and precise tiny jets of air being blown onto your skin. The result is that you can create a range of very accurate touch sensations.

Hand tracking technology in our device also enabled us to detect when a person had their hand under the device and the exact position of their hand as they moved it around, all of which enabled us to create a precise sensation of touch.

The underside of our device, with 256 small ultrasound speakers that help simulate the feeling of different weather conditions and a hand tracker to determine exactly where a user’s hand is

We combined this feeling of touch with some visuals (3D holographic type animated images of �� weather forecast symbols, such as the sun shining or rain falling) to make the experience more immersive.

Using the sense of touch to enhance TV, films and radio

Whether it is the ultra-high definition footage of nature documentaries on a big screen TV, cinema style surround sound speakers at home or the rich digital worlds that virtual reality (VR) headsets can now deliver, new technologies are making our media experiences far more immersive and realistic than ever before.

To date, much of this increased immersion and realism has relied on two of our five senses: sight and hearing. However, with the advances in haptics touch technology, we might start to see completely new ways for us to interact with and experience media content on our digital devices.

Touch sensations could be delivered by using existing devices (whether that is a vibrating remote control in the living room or the mobile phones that we carry everywhere); new devices using the type of ultrasound technology that we experimented with or vibrating Minority Report style gloves could become common place. Haptics technology could also become crucial in an augmented reality world, allowing us to feel and control virtual holographic objects that appear floating in front of us - you might interact with a news article that floats in front of you as you walk to work, or press the virtual play button and get a feeling of haptic feedback on a holographic version of �� iPlayer.

Who knows, perhaps in the future, haptic touch technology might be a way to make your favourite drama, sporting event, nature programme or documentary an even more immersive experience than it is today. For sporting events, imagine being able to feel the power behind a tennis serve at Wimbledon, the sensation of a football being kicked in the FA Cup final, or the impact that a competitor feels when being hit in an Olympics Taekwondo fight. Imagine being drawn into the tension of a drama such as Bodyguard by feeling David Budd’s car skid round a corner during a car chase. The technology could also be used in nature documentaries, perhaps to help give you a feeling of what it might be like to brush up against the leaves in a rainforest or feel an exotic animal whilst you see it on screen in high definition.

Another potential benefit of haptic touch technology is the ability to improve the accessibility of media content for people with visual or hearing impairments. Being able to feel the weather forecast or other content and experiences via touch could potentially open up a useful and powerful way for them to access important information.

The applications for haptics technology and media content are wide ranging – with our experiment, we have only just touched the surface of what might be possible in the future.

�� Weather: Listening to your feedback

2018-02-07T09:26:37+00:00

Michael Burnett is the executive product manager for �� Weather’s digital products. In this blog, he explains updates we’re making to the new weather website based on your feedback.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about our rollout of the new Weather website, and new versions of the app on iOS and Android. I explained some of the new features as well as the architecture to facilitate the switch to our new weather data suppliers, MeteoGroup.

Thank you for taking the time to read about, and try out, the new site and give us your feedback. The passion for our online Weather services is obvious from the volume and detailed nature of the comments you’ve made. There was a huge variety of comments on the blog and on social media; on twitter there has been a large amount of positive comments about the new graphics in the App, but on the blog, there were a number of clear concerns that people were raising about the new website.

We’ve reviewed your concerns, and we’re taking action to address them:

Video forecasts and regional text summaries

With the broadcast launch now complete, I’m glad to say that the video forecasts and regional text summaries are back on the site.

Video forecasts and regional summaries are back on the site

Pressure maps

Many comments mentioned that they couldn’t find or access the pressure map. Desktop users (and users on some mobile operating systems) can get to the pressure map by opening the full screen map on any location page and toggling the pressure layer on/off from the dropdown key. Following your feedback, we are now adding a new ‘pressure’ tab to the in-page map that will make finding pressure maps easier.
This feature will be live in the coming weeks.

We will make pressure maps more accessible in the coming week

UK map

Some of you have mentioned you’re missing a direct link to the full screen map on the homepage and just want a UK overview without having to pick a location and accessing the map from there.
We’re therefore planning to add a link to the interactive UK map from the homepage in the coming weeks.

Favourites and sign-in

There have been lots of comments about favourite locations being harder to find. The new site allows you to save and manage more locations, and we have created this how to guide to show you how to do this.

Based on your feedback we will be working on ways to better surface the weather near you when you first land on the website; we’ll test out different approaches in the weeks to come.

Some users have complained about having to sign in. You don’t need to sign-in to use the site or find the weather where you are. Type in a location/postcode in the top search bar and you should be able to navigate to right local forecast. When you open the search bar, you should see all your recent searches at the bottom of the search box if your cookies are enabled.

A change in the weather

2018-01-22T11:00:00+00:00

Michael Burnett is the executive product manager for �� Weather’s highly popular mobile app and website. In this blog, he explains exciting changes under way as �� Weather moves to a new weather services supplier, MeteoGroup. MeteoGroup is a global weather company with headquarters in the UK, that combines accurate science with advanced technology and local expertise with global reach.

Over the next few weeks, exciting new updates will be coming to the ��’s weather service. Millions of users of the �� Weather website and applications on iOS, Android and Kindle will start to see a number of improvements. For some users of our website, that starts today.

We are able to bring you these as the �� begins a partnership with our new weather service provider, MeteoGroup. Together we can offer more forecast data, overhaul the technical architecture behind the online services and improve the way our services look across all platforms. This is just the beginning. There will be more improvements over the next few months and new features which aim to enhance your user experience.

Phased improvements

Like most new digital products these days, we will be phasing the roll-out of the enhanced services to make sure they keep running to the highest standard. Over the next couple of weeks more and more of our audience will be taken to our new site and be given the option to update their �� Weather app. The improved functions users will benefit from include:

New 14-day forecast: Our new site and apps will now have access to more data than ever before which means we can show you up to 14 days of hourly forecast data for UK locations and major international cities
New forecast features: In addition to new moving graphics, we know audiences want more information to plan their days and so we’ve added new data fields like ‘chance of rain’ and ‘feels like’ temperature
More locations: We’ve also added thousands of new locations, including many international, to our database to make sure you can find the weather for where you are and wherever you want to go
New interactive map: On the website you will see a new weather map for all forecast locations, helping to show the bigger picture of weather ahead in your area. Clicking on it, will take you to a full interactive map experience, allowing you to scroll and zoom around your local area, region, country and even the globe
More to come: This launch is just the start and more improvements are on the way, but you’ll start to see visual differences as we refresh the site and apps, and offer a much more consistent and unified look & feel across TV and digital platforms

What made all this possible are the real advances in app and digital technology that we’ve utilised by redesigning our digital architecture. For the aficionados out there, cloud technologies have changed how the �� develops and deploys software.

Video will be back on the site as soon as we’ve moved fully across to our new Weather partner

We’ve used our cloud services platform provider and the ��’s own deployment system Cosmos, along with the CloudFormation infrastructure management tool, to rebuild our new services on Weather. This means we can now iterate and scale in a fast and efficient way.

People sometimes say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” so I want to emphasise this is not change for change’s sake. We carried out extensive user testing and prototyping to find out what worked and what didn’t so we could pinpoint improvements in design and user experience.

One thing that will be noticeable to everyone is a much more consistent look across all platforms. Graphics you will see on TV in a few weeks' time will also be instantly recognisable on the app and website as well as symbols and animations. As we start to roll out personalisation, these user experience enhancements will become even more apparent.

Go to full-screen version of map for an overview of the weather, toggle forecast and observation data layers, including pressure and radar

You can read more here about the ��’s plans to make its products and services more personalised and relevant to our audiences. �� Weather is no exception – we have big plans to make sure our users get a more personal experience when they signed-in, where they can sync their locations and get personalised notifications for the weather where they are.

We hope you’ll love the new and improved �� Weather service just as much as we do. We always listen to our audiences and take your feedback on board so let us know what you think.

We’ve put together some answers to commonly asked questions about the new site, such as where ‘favourites’ and video have gone, as well as how to get to pressure maps. And, if you need more information about using ‘My locations’, check out our explainer.

�� Weather Watchers: Creating the new crowdsourced weather experience

2015-11-03T19:01:00+00:00

Following its launch on The One Show tonight, Executive Project Manager Michael Burnett explains the development of a new crowdsourcing website, �� Weather Watchers. The responsive site lets users upload weather photos and data in real-time, share their own weather reports via social media, and engage directly with the ��'s team of weather presenters up and down the country.

Tapping into our audience’s passion

Obviously, there are many reasons why we’ve worked on this project at this time and I’ll let my editorial colleague, Liz Howell, give the full explanation here. From a Digital perspective, I’m very aware of how passionately our audience feel about the weather.

Every day we receive bundles of emails, messages and photos about the weather. We try our best to show off users’ photos on the regular website and in mentions in TV and radio broadcasts, but there is so much quality content that goes to waste. Therefore, it’s been great to create a space where we can make the most of all our users’ content and contributions and give it the credit it deserves.

Defining a user journey

A key element to this project has been to understand our audience, and make sure the site has the broadest appeal. We have some very informed weather enthusiasts out there and they clearly know their stuff, with self-made weather stations to boot.

However, we wanted to ensure �� Weather Watchers was also as accessible as possible to people with a passing interest in weather. We wanted to make sure anyone with a computer, tablet or smartphone could contribute in some way. Hence, a responsive website, which can adapt to whatever screen size or device you have, was essential.

�� Weather Watchers' responsive design adapts to different device

Our crowdsourcing club had to be inclusive whatever your level of knowledge and expertise, so creating a compelling and accessible user journey was the first priority of our UX exploration. Much of this project has been driven by the ��’s Make It Digital initiative, where inspiring people with varying levels of digital knowledge was important. Early on, we established the minimum level of user contribution should be the ability to choose one of the renowned weather symbols to describe the weather they can see out of their window. Users needed to be able to quickly and easily:

1. Register their Weather Watchers location

2. Create their own Weather Watchers nickname

3. Create a weather report, using �� Weather icons and temperature

4. Upload a photo on that weather report

5. Share that weather report on social media

6. See their weather report on a map, along with other local Weather Watchers members

As well as convenience, we wanted to make the site playful and reflect the changing seasons. We’ve launched in autumn, but the site will change appearance when we enter winter, spring and summer. The other part of this was to tap into the ��’s distinctiveness. Contributing to a website is all very well, but we wanted this to be a two-way conversation with our TV and radio presenters across Britain. Therefore, as well as a website, we wanted to make sure our broadcasters had the right tools to access the photos and weather reports submitted by our users, so they could display them on TV.

Users get to interact with the ��’s weather icons

Agile vs ‘Big Bang’

On this blog, we often talk about our ‘Agile’ approach to development, releasing little and often. However, when you work for a broadcaster with a hard launch date on The One Show, there’s always a touch of ‘Big Bang’ in that approach too. The challenge has been to marry the two approaches.

After designs were finalised, we had just over three months of development time with regular fortnightly deployments to get it right in time for the November launch. Essential to this has been to build the service on an entirely cloud-based system to allow flexibility, speed of deployment and, most importantly, scalability to accommodate various loads.

As well as a website, we have built an image uploader, and an admin tool for staff based across the UK, so that our Weather presenters can easily access and promote the user-generated content and photos on broadcast outlets.

Mapping out the user journey was key, as seen in this original diagram

A motley crew of dependencies

A key aspect of this project was utilising a number of existing services and tools elsewhere in the ��. To enable users to register their location meant integrating with �� iD, so we’d have a robust sign-in system which was compatible with other �� services.

To identify user’s location, we implemented the same ‘Locator’ tool we use on the Weather and Travel sites, recognising thousands of UK place names (GeoNames) and postcodes.

Obviously, allowing users to upload photos in real-time does have its risks. We needed to ensure the right processes were in place to remove inappropriate content should it arise. Therefore, we’ve taken due care to set up a quick-reacting moderation process through the ��’s moderation team.

In addition, we have integrated the site with Google Maps, as well as the ��’s own content publishing system (CPS), which is also used to populate the �� News and Sport sites, so that our Weather team can publish exclusive ‘behind-the-scenes’ Weather Watchers content to the site.

Beta phase and super users

Of course, the proof of the pudding is getting real users on the site, uploading reports and pressing all the buttons. We’ve used the last few weeks to run special workshops at �� stations in the nations and regions. Hundreds of volunteers and super users signed up and got a first taste of the site in its beta phase.

This not only gave us useful feedback but also started to put the site through its paces. I’ve been really pleased with the favourable reaction, and am hopeful we’ve already laid the foundations of a very special new community.

Where next?

I’m keen to see how the community grows, and listen to your feedback. We already have a list of tasks to improve the experience, but we will need to prioritise that accordingly against requests raised by our audience. So I hope you have a chance to try out �� Weather Watchers for yourself. Look forward to hearing from you!

Weather: redirecting mobile users to responsive

2014-10-17T12:22:02+00:00

This post is just to let you know that this week we’ve started redirecting our mobile users to the new responsive version of the �� Weather site.

We launched the responsive site in March to replace the old feature phone Weather site with an optimised experience for feature phone and smartphone users.

Mobile users will be automatically redirected to an optimised view of the site

It's a still work-in-progress, but is the next step in our plans to move to a fully responsive web solution on mobile, tablet and desktop.

So far, we’ve let users discover it for themselves as we fine-tune some of the basic functionality, so it’s only accounted for about 3% of our traffic.

However, I hope the redirect will allow more of our users to discover the new site and perhaps enable a better experience on-the-go, so we’d love to hear what you think.

My very simplified diagram of how the redirect works

Don’t worry if you’re a big fan of the old desktop site, anyone on a tablet or above will still go straight through to the traditional view.

And if you’re on a mobile device and would still prefer to see the traditional site, then click on the ‘Desktop site’ option in the footer of the page, and then you should seamlessly switch over.

Also, the mobile redirect covers the homepage and forecast pages, such as London, Glasgow and Cardiff, so other content such as video, picture galleries and coastal data is still available directly from the desktop site.

Location is key

Like our sister product Travel, which recently relaunched, location is central to what we do. So we’ve improved our location setting feature on responsive.

As well as being able to reuse previous searches (tracking locations you recently searched for), you can now set a default location which you can share between other �� products such as �� Travel and ��page.

In addition, mobile users will be able to see an optimised view of localised weather warnings issued by the Met Office. So if there’s a rain, wind, ice, snow or fog warning issued in a location you’ve searched for, then you’ll see it.

So I hope you like the responsive Weather site and find it intuitive and easier to use when you’re on the move.

I'm keen to hear your feedback so let me know what you think by commenting on this post, or alternatively contacting the Weather team at WeatherBetaFeedback@bbc.co.uk.

Mike Burnett is Executive Product Manager, �� Future Media

�� Weather launches responsive website

2014-03-21T14:29:05+00:00

This week we launched a new responsive site for �� Weather. As our MVP (minimum viable product) release, this replaces the old feature phone Weather site with an optimised experience for feature phone and smartphone users.

It's a work-in-progress, and the first step in our plans to move to a fully responsive web solution on mobile, tablet and desktop. In true Agile, we're expecting to roll out more features and content over the coming months. Naturally we're also listening to our users as we prototype and tweak new features.

The new mobile site includes recent locations and horizontal scrolling

Almost half our audience access Weather from mobile and tablets, and like so many online products this proportion is only going to increase. I know that many of our users (around 19%) are catered for via our Android and iOS apps, but it's been a priority for us to make sure the website is also optimised for a multitude of devices.

From previous user feedback, we can see the success of the iOS and Android app has been its simplicity and ease of use. Therefore, it's no surprise that we followed these design patterns for the responsive version of the site. Smartphone users will immediately notice the introduction of horizontally-scrolling day tabs and hourly information, like the app.

However, one key difference for web site development is the depth and richness of content available. Our static desktop website covers everything from simple location forecasts to detailed tide and coastal data, video, picture galleries, maps and infographics. We will need to reflect this in future iterations of the responsive site. For this reason, the first iteration of the responsive site is opt-in at m.bbc.co.uk/weather. We won't be automatically redirecting mobile users until we have built a satisfactory base of content and features on that platform.

Approach and prototyping

Back to the drawing board to bring together design patterns across devices and platforms

Naturally, it's been a 'mobile first' strategy for the new site and we've been keen to bring in more consistent designs patterns across all our Weather products. In the last three months, we've employed a cycle of prototyping, testing, and building to release the first version of the responsive site.

One of the key new ideas for launch is our 'Recent Locations' functionality, which stores the user's last five weather forecast locations for easy access and passive personalisation. Main features of new site include:

* Location Search auto-suggest

* Recent locations functionality - stores your last five locations

* Horizontally scrolling hourly forecast and detail slots for smartphones

* English/Welsh versions integrated via settings

* Weather measurements available in metric or imperial

* Link to Met Office Severe Weather Warnings information

* Link to Environmental Agency Flood Warnings information

* Feedback email link to 'Tell us what you think'

Feedback

If you've already seen the site, you'll have noticed the bright yellow banner asking you to 'tell us what you think'. We've already had a healthy flow of responses - some positive, some less so. We are monitoring these responses carefully and will address any issues that come up.

Many feature phone users are missing the 5 day overview so we will be reintroducing it soon

One issue coming through loud and clear is that many users on more basic phones are missing the old vertical five-day overview. We're addressing this now and will be reintroducing the overview in the next few weeks. Feel free to tell us what you think and, if you have a particular issue, it's always helpful to tell what device you're using.

That's all for now, but I'll keep you posted on new developments and the next stages in the future.

Mike Burnett is an executive product manager for �� Weather

�� Weather app hits 5m mark

2014-01-30T10:33:35+00:00

2014 has barely begun but the popularity of the �� Weather app goes from strength to strength. This week, the app reached 5 million downloads on iOS, Android and Amazon devices.

Achieved in less than eight months, this milestone feels like the icing on the cake for �� Weather’s 60th anniversary celebrations earlier this month.

I must admit it has also marked a nice introduction for me to Weather, having joined from News in November, and gives me confidence for our ambitions this year.

Certainly, the response to the app since its launch last June has been fantastic. Consistently high audience reviews and ratings have helped, as well as being named in several end-of-year apps lists.

�� Weather apps on different devices

Another contributing factor has been changing user trends as mobile and tablet traffic continues to rise. December was the first full month where mobiles and tablets represented half the traffic to �� Weather. This was probably helped in no small part by a whole new bunch of smartphone and tablet devices being unwrapped on Christmas Day. In fact, Christmas week was our largest week-on-week increase since July, with 244,000 downloads.

Obviously another major contributor was the weather itself. I am well aware there have been some very difficult weather conditions up and down the UK since early December. So it’s humbling to know that so many users have turned to the �� app for their weather information.

Naturally, we have continued to listen to your feedback, in order to prioritise a number of improvements to the app. Recent updates include ability to rotate your tablet device to view the app in landscape, as well as releasing a version for Amazon Kindle devices, sharing, and installing links to the Met Office National UK Weather warnings.

So what now? Well, more improvement are to come, most notably 10-day forecasts. The website already shows 10 days, but the apps only five. It has been a tricky challenge to find a scalable design that works in the app on a multitude of different screen sizes, but still makes sense to audiences.

We are also using the lessons learnt on apps to start building a new responsive website for Weather, and will be looking to integrate more localised Met Office Weather warnings onto the apps and site later this year.

As always, we will keep monitoring your feedback as we continue to improve �� Weather’s offering on all platforms.

Mike Burnett is an Executive Product Manager, �� Weather

�� Weather app facts

• Weather app downloads so far are roughly equally split between iOS and Android devices

• Peak mobile traffic on Friday mornings from 7am

• Peak tablet traffic on Thursday evenings from 10pm.

• In an average week, a 60/40 split between users on mobiles against tablets.

�� Weather App: designing for device orientation

2013-11-19T09:00:09+00:00

Hi, I'm Mala Vadhia, a Senior User Experience Designer in �� Future Media.

The �� Weather app was launched back in June (user experience led by my colleague Stephen Robertson). Since then we've heard from many users about the need for landscape rotation across all Android devices and the desire for a tablet app on iOS (as product manager James Metcalfe last week).

We currently support 438 different screen resolutions on over 1000 Android devices. The key challenge here was to produce a design that scales, rather than bespoke solutions for both iPhone and iPad.

As well as scaling elements of the design we introduce features based on the screen size of the device. For example, for screen heights as small as 320 dips (density-independent pixels) we don't have the height to reveal the five day forecast information within the navigation tabs (or the hourly temperature curve). We reintroduce the five day forecast within the navigation for screen heights 360 dips and above, and the temperature curve for screen heights 380 dips and above. Similarly, for screens that are narrow in landscape orientation, such as devices 433 dips wide, we don’t show the column with environmental information, sunrise and sunset.

Android app on screen heights as small as 320 dips high and QVGA devices 433 dips wide

We aimed to keep a tight relationship between the elements that make up the five day forecast, the daily overview on the home screen and the temperature curve on the hourly forecast. The vertical space in between these areas increases as the app scales, allowing the designs to breathe.

Android vertical stretch points

By focusing on one design that scales we have been able to build on the existing Android app more quickly, while keeping a consistent user experience across all devices.

�� Weather App on the Nexus 10, 7 and 5

The major difference in the iOS app is that we have exposed the hourly forecast data in both portrait and landscape orientation. The stats confirmed that this is the most commonly used feature by our users.

Most commonly used features on the iOS �� Weather app

With extra horizontal space on larger iOS devices we had the room to expose the temperature curve which visualises how the weather will develop over a day. For example, if you are likely to get caught out by a rain shower or if the day will become warmer.

We made a couple of smaller enhancements too. The sunrise/sunset time is in a more prominent position following user feedback, and we’ve strengthened the relationship between the refresh icon and the location by bringing them closer together.

�� Weather app in portrait on iPhone & iPad Mini and in landscape on iPad

Both apps remain optimised for their respective platforms and use bold typography to create strong hierarchies and highlight key information.

On Android, we're using the font Roboto - the bold weight is a little condensed compared with Helvetica bold so it works well for small screens and long location names.

With this update we've taken the opportunity to freshen up the look and feel of the app. We improved the ambient transitions for daytime and added two new ambiances for light rain and heavy rain showers. We also introduced nighttime ambiences for all weather types.

Day and night weather ambiences

We’re now using simple, semi-transparent white blocks on top of the ambiences which let the weather show through (for example behind the five day forecast). We stripped back the use of gradients, creating what we feel is a cleaner design.

I'm always keen to hear your feedback so please leave a comment below.

Mala Vadhia is a Senior User Experience Designer, �� Future Media

�� Weather App across various locations

�� Weather app on iPad and Kindle

2013-11-12T09:51:53+00:00

It has been nearly 5 months since the �� Weather app launched on Android and iOS devices. There’s been a fantastic response with over 3.7 million downloads.

We have received some excellent feedback from users, with the launch generating nearly 6000 feedback emails, and over 32000 store reviews… that’s an average of nearly 260 comments a day. By far the majority of these have been positive, with over 31000 4 and 5 star reviews on playstore.

We have been reviewing and responding to as many of these comments as possible. Thanks to your feedback in true Agile fashion we have been able to prioritise a number of improvements to make the apps even better.

The biggest change is we’ve introduced the ability to rotate your tablet device to view the app in landscape. This is especially challenging for the multitude of Android Devices, so we have focused on a scalable design which one of our UX designers will cover in a blog post soon.

Also today the app has been released to the iPad store as it was previously only available as an iPhone app. This update also includes some style adjustments for iOS7 so the app utilizes some familiar design layout and buttons.

�� Weather on iPad and iPhone

Since the Android app scales for tablets, we have been able to release the app for the Android based Amazon Kindle devices. This release for Android includes some changes to the way we handle location, including the ability to disable the current location detection as requested by many users, and is available for iOS in the phone Location settings.

In time for the winter months, this update also links the apps to the Met Office National UK Weather warnings, as displayed on our website.

In order to scale the apps for tablets we have included new weather ambience backgrounds, which improve contrast and include night versions to better reflect the conditions at the time of day.

Finally, we have included the ability to share the forecast with friends via social networks all from within the app.

As ever, we will keep monitoring your feedback and response to these changes to further improve the ��’s offer on mobiles and tablets.

James Metcalfe is a Senior Product Manager, �� Weather

�� Weather app reaches one million downloads

2013-06-26T07:01:44+00:00

Recently I wrote about the launch of the �� Weather apps for Android and iOS and I’m delighted to announce the app has reached over one million downloads across both platforms within the first two weeks of launch.

It’s great to see such a positive response to the app and to reach this milestone in extra quick time. I wanted to take this opportunity to share some insights into how people have been using it so far, as we’ve already started to see a shift in �� Weather mobile usage.

The �� Weather app on different devices

For example, over 25% of people are now accessing our services via mobile, up from 20% prior to the apps launching.

In the first weekend following the app’s launch (15 and 16 June) we saw an approximate 47% increase in mobile access compared to the previous weekends number of mobile visits.

This was likely driven by people familiarising themselves with the new app and because the weather was especially changeable that weekend, with a real mix of sunny spells and showers.

As a result the hourly forecast feature was widely used as people kept track of the conditions and this feature drove 84% of the total mobile traffic over that weekend.

One of the other interesting trends we’ve noticed so far is how people use the �� Weather app as part of their daily routine.

The most popular time for checking the weather is first thing in the morning between about 6 and 9am as people get up and start to prepare for the day and we see about 28 people per second requesting weather information.

Usage dips around 10am before a small peak at lunchtime, no doubt because people are checking to see if there’s a chance for an al fresco lunch.

As we approach the evening and prepare to head home we see a peak of 25 requests a second at around 6pm as people check to see that they don’t get caught out whilst making the most of the light nights, before the majority of users start to switch off from around 10pm.

Sunday evening is also proving a popular time to check the app as we again see about 25 requests a second as users look ahead and prepare for the week to come.

When we launched the app many of you commented on the things you liked, the things we could improve and some ideas for future features. All the feedback has been extremely valuable and we’re already starting to address some of it.

It’s clear that many Android users like the homescreen widget but would also like a variety of widget sizes and we hope to introduce these soon. We are also looking at ways to improve how the app finds and displays your location.

Please continue to send your comments, we really appreciate all your feedback and are reading all responses, but as there are so many it is not possible to reply to all that we get.

You can leave comments via reviews in Google Play and the iTunes app store, via twitter @��Weather, via our contact form or leave a comment below.

James Metcalfe is the senior product manager for the �� Weather website.

Round up: �� Weather app and Barb reporting

2013-06-21T10:22:29+00:00

Hi time for another round up of news stories about �� Online from the last two weeks.

The release of the �� Weather app on Android and iOS gained a lot of attention. Senior product manager James Metcalfe blogged:

The iOS app has been created to ensure the best standards and guidelines have been followed so all interactions menus and settings should be very familiar to iOS users, such as a left navigation menu with search and edit functionality. The major difference for Android is the use of the action bar for search and the ability to offer an interactive home screen widget, which we are pleased to include in this first version. We added some fun stuff too like bumping two phones together to share your favorite locations over Near Field Communication (NFC).

The �� Weather app on different screens

Phones Review praised the new app:

It has a good clear design and features such as location search where you can store your favourites, or alternatively it can use your current location.

While Digital Trends commented:

With so many weather apps already available to smartphone users, the �� will be hoping its high profile will help ensure its offering is a success. It certainly has some pretty stiff competition, with well-regarded alternatives like this one and this one already proving popular with users.

An article in the Sunday Express on the child protection safeguards in place for �� iPlayer caused controversy this week :

Technology has made a nonsense of the 9pm watershed with evidence growing that youngsters are using the ��’s internet iPlayer service to watch scenes of appalling violence against women in popular dramas such as The Fall and Ripper Street.

The story was picked up by the Daily Mail, which reported:

At the moment people calling up programmes on the service only need to tick a box confirming they are over 16 to watch adult material. The �� does offer a parental lock but many households do not use this. Even young users of the service admit the ‘tick box’ method is fundamentally flawed in stopping youngsters watching adult material.

The Mail quoted a �� spokesperson: “�� iPlayer has controls in place to safeguard children from viewing and listening to guidance-labelled programming.”

You can read more about the �� iPlayer Parental Guidance Lock on the iPlayer help pages.

�� iPlayer Parental Guidance lock

Barb, who report on the TV audience numbers for broadcasters such as the �� has announced that they will also start reporting on Online viewing figures by the end of 2013. As reported by The Guardian:

Justin Sampson, chief executive of Barb, described the move as "pivotal". "Our initial focus is on reporting the extent to which IP [internet protocol] content is being downloaded or streamed. This is a significant step forward in our ambition to deliver cross-platform measurement of content.
"For the first time we will have a gold standard report into viewing to TV player services such as 4oD, �� iPlayer, Demand 5, ITV Player and Sky Go," Barb said.

TechCrunch reported on a partnership between �� and Storify, a service that allows users to create timelines using social media interactions. They have created a VIP service designed for “media organizations, publishers or anyone wanting to deeply integrate social curation and storytelling into their site.”:
One of the first companies to use the VIP service is the ��, in what Storify describes as “one of our first formal partnerships with a media organization.” �� developers have built a custom Storify integration for the �� site

You can read more about how the �� uses Storify for Live blogging on Jessica's post or check out our own Live Blogs.

The �� has released its iPlayer performance pack for May. Digital Spy reported a record month for iPlayer Radio with 76 million programme requests.

The �� announced its coverage of Wimbledon for this year will be “the most comprehensive digital coverage of Wimbledon ever this year, building on the success of the London 2012 Olympics. Audiences can follow an unprecedented amount of action, wherever and whenever they want to, with up to 10 live streams and on-demand content available across four screens - PCs, tablets, mobiles and connected TVs. “

And finally, the closure of the binder feature on �� Food caused complaints. Andrew Pipes blog post has 152 comments to date.

Quantock Chef wrote:

What a retrograde step! The binder worked perfectly; why change it? The new favourites don't even work properly; why not complete the development before launching it? Don't change things if you are not making them better.

Andrew responded to audience comments:

We are releasing a bug fix this week that may be causing this issue for some. Basically, when some users try to sign in to their �� ID, 'ssl' is prepended to the �� Food website URLs. Try replacing 'ssl' with 'www' manually, and re-adding the recipe to your Favourites. If that works, then the fix that we will be releasing this week should solve your problems. If it still persists, then more details on the operating systems and browsers will help us narrow down the causes.

Thanks!

Eliza Kessler is the content producer on the Internet blog.

New �� Weather app for Android and iOS

2013-06-10T05:30:57+00:00

I’m James Metcalfe, senior product manager for the �� Weather website and as my editorial colleague Liz has mentioned on the �� Editors blog, today we launch our native mobile apps for Android and iOS.

The Android version is now available from the Google Play store and the iOS version is available from the iTunes store.

The �� Weather app on various screens

While most users have traditionally visited the �� Weather site on their desktop, we have seen a huge increase in mobile use over the past year. It is with this in mind that we have been working on a truly mobile �� Weather offer for our audiences.

The results are clear, easy to use apps that are now available for the majority of visitors to �� Weather, covering 82% of mobile weather visitors. Features include:

Location aware five-day forecasts and 48 hours of UK based hourly forecasts.
International locations and three hourly forecast details.
Extra detail for each hour including Visibility, Humidity and Pressure.
Settings to change your app preferences.
Ambient transitions to provide more context about the weather at your location.
Accessibility for screen readers via voice over.
An Android widget with a five-day overview.
�� design principles with usability at the core.

Native or hybrid HTML5?

We wanted to provide the best user experience we could for mobile devices. Based on our research, 80% of respondents said a simple uncluttered forecast was most important and this focused our design approach, which my colleague Stephen will discuss in more detail soon.

Through prototyping and user feedback sessions we clarified our designs and also investigated the use of HTML5 hybrid apps along with a purely native app. Deciding our approach was not easy as both have advantages.

However, based on feedback, speed and simplicity were highlighted as particularly important on the move and to present forecast data quickly we chose to develop native code. We could take full advantage of location and data management whilst interactions, transitions and animations were far easier to implement.

It has provided us with the foundations in which we can continue to enhance and expand new features using the best of native or even HTML5 as it becomes more responsive to our needs on mobiles.

Different ways to view content

The major features of the apps are the same for both platforms but there are subtle differences in the interactions to take advantage of the familiar navigation on your phone. The iOS app has been created to ensure the best standards and guidelines have been followed so all interactions menus and settings should be very familiar to iOS users, such as a left navigation menu with search and edit functionality.

The major difference for Android is the use of the action bar for search and the ability to offer an interactive home screen widget, which we are pleased to include in this first version. We added some fun stuff too like bumping two phones together to share your favorite locations over Near Field Communication (NFC).

We have also managed a quick update in time for launch to include the new Android standard navigation drawer which was announced a few weeks ago at the Google developer conference.

Testing for multiple devices

As there are so many variations of mobile device on the market there was some concern about building two apps for release at the same time. How could we test effectively on the huge variation of devices that our audience use?

We decided to automate testing through the use of the Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) framework Cucumber to define scenarios in plain language and wrote Calabash step definitions that turn behaviours into automated code our apps understand, then simulate the interactions common to mobile phones such as swiping a screen.

We are already comfortable using BDD and felt this approach would give us the best possible coverage whilst automating the common tests would free up our testers to focus on less common interactions.

We automated these tests as part of our deployment and for the first time integrated with a hosted device lab that would run all of our scenarios on a wide range of phones overnight. This provides a collection of screenshots which we were then able to use to quickly confirm the behaviour was as expected on many devices.

We have also verified through Beta testing with hundreds of users that the apps work on as many devices as possible.

We are aware however that to cover every device combination would be almost impossible, especially for Android. So if you do see any bugs please let us know using the feedback link in the app and provide details of your phone and operating system.

We have worked hard to make the apps accessible by checking the colour contrasts of images and considering text to speech devices. My colleague Al Duggin will write more about accessibility on the Internet blog soon but if you have further feedback on how the app performs via screen readers please let us know.

Feedback

We will be adding additional features such as sharing and longer range forecasts to the apps and our mobile site, but would also like to know your views on what you want from a weather app. We have already considered forecast maps for mobile and this is something we will look at as we re-evaluate this section for the desktop site.

We will keep a close eye on all of your comments so do please let us know how you find your experience using the app. As well as via reviews in Google Play and the iTunes app store you can contact us via twitter @��Weather, via our contact form or leave a comment below.

When leaving a comment or reporting a problem it would be a great help if you are specific about which device you are using and which version of the operating system you have installed (which can usually be found in the ‘about’ section of the settings menu on your device).

I hope you find this �� Weather app a valuable addition and look forward to hearing your feedback.

James Metcalfe is senior product manager for �� Weather.

A record week for �� Weather

2013-01-25T16:02:48+00:00

I’m Jo Wickremasinghe and I’m head of product for �� Weather and Travel News.

Like many of you I was grappling with ‘snow week’ last week, constantly checking travel and weather updates to see whether my commute – and my carefully laid weekend plans – would be disrupted.

With several weather warnings in force from Thursday 17 January it was a very busy time for the �� Weather online team as we experienced record-breaking traffic to the site.

�� Weather forecast page for Cardiff on Friday 18 January showing heavy snow fall

Last week we saw our highest weekly traffic to http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ in the past few years and certainly since our re-launch in November 2011.

We received just over 20 million unique browsers last week compared to a weekly average of around 7.5 million in 2012.

We’re happy with how the site performed under the extra strain and we want to make sure it performs as you expect so do let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions in the comments.

Adverse weather and snow often drives traffic to our site as people look to find out how they’ll be affected and what their journeys will be like.

Previously our highest week of traffic was in late November 2010 which was the last time the UK was heavily snowed under. On that week the site was visited by nearly 14 million unique browsers.

That makes our new 2013 peak around a 47% increase in traffic compared to the previous peak.

We know some of the regular Internet Blog readers like to chew through some stats so here are a few of the more interesting trends we’ve spotted:

Gearing up for the weekend: The peak days were Thursday 17 January (when the site was visited by over 7.3 million UK unique browsers) and Friday 18 January (when the site was visited by over 6.8 million UK unique browsers).
Checking on the commute: The peaks in traffic were on the afternoon of Thursday 17 (3pm – 6pm) and the morning of Friday 18 (7am to 2pm). At those times the �� Weather site was visited by more than 700,000 unique browsers every hour (around five times the level of traffic we’d see in a typical hour of a typical day).
Mobile and multiple devices: In a typical week just under a quarter of our unique browsers are mobiles or tablets. Last week this figure was nearer a third as people used multiple devices to keep track of the forecast.

The growth in mobile and tablet usage of �� Weather online is something we’ve been tracking for a while and we are working on improving the experience for the range of devices people now use to access �� Weather.

I hope that was an interesting behind-the scenes-insight into how last week’s weather impacted the site.

For some parts of the country the weather forecast next week looks a lot better, and we may even see the return of some sunshine this weekend.

But for others the snow continues to fall and there may be localised flooding. So be prepared and stay ahead of the weather by visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ to get the latest weather forecast for a location near you.

Jo Wickremasinghe is the head of product for �� Weather and Travel News.

Further Ahead: Ten Day Forecasts on �� Weather

2012-07-06T10:15:52+00:00

�� Weather forecast page for Birmingham showing the 'Further ahead' button

Just over two weeks ago I posted a blog about the major upgrade we made to the �� Weather website, introducing new hourly forecasts for UK locations and three hourly forecasts for International locations.

Yesterday we introduced extended forecasts, providing ten day forecasts for all our locations.

When you select a forecast location on �� Weather you will see the forecast for today and the next four days in the tabs across the top of the page. Above the 'Find a Forecast' box you will now see a 'Further ahead' button which will take you to the following 5 days forecasts (i.e. into next week).

You can go back to the first five days by clicking the same button which now says 'First five days'.

After selecting the 'Further Ahead' button you see the five day forecast into the following week. The 'First five days' button will take you back to the previous week

You will also notice that the forecast data granularity decreases over time. In the UK we have hourly data for the first two days, which then decreases to three hourly forecasts for the next three days, and then day/night forecasts for the final five days of the 10 day forecast.

The day/night forecasts are shown as ranges - for the day's high temperatures and night's low temperatures.

You may also notice that the further ahead the forecast, for example days nine and ten, the ranges can be quite wide and day/night temperatures may even overlap as shown in the example above.

Whilst this may seem quite strange it is just a reflection of the confidence levels of the forecast that far into the future.

The nearer the forecast we can provide more granular and confident predictions, but further ahead the uncertainly increases. We hope that despite the uncertainty of the further ahead forecasts that you still find them valuable and helpful. I look forward to your feedback and comments.

Jo Wickremasinghe is the Head of Product for �� Weather in �� Future Media

Connected Studio 4: Weather and Travel Build Studio

2012-07-05T17:00:00+00:00

The teams finished the event with a ten-minute demo of their work

Last week, �� Connected Studio ventured off site again, this time to MozSpace in central London for the second Build Studio, with the focus on the Weather and Travel Product.

From the 25 concepts that were pitched at the Creative Studio in Google Campus on June 12, six teams were selected to attend.

After my short introduction, and a briefing for each team from my colleagues in Weather, the teams began two intense days developing their proof of concept.

Some of the six teams were combinations of selected ideas from the Creative Studio day, as the other judges and I had identified overlapping but complementary themes. As a result, many members were working together for the first time, and we had teams that mixed staff from across the �� with different companies collaborating on merged ideas.

The Weather and Travel team had created an environment for rapid prototyping and development, with access to a range of APIs and data sets so the six teams could build quickly on top of the �� Weather site - thanks to Jeremy and his team (plus Joel from R&D who provided vital sys admin support) for going above and beyond to make that possible whilst also launching new services.

So let's get to what you are all interested in; the pitches.

At the end of the second day, they presented the working prototypes or mock-ups they had created to the judges. The teams, with a brief idea of their concepts, were:

383 & �� - Personalised info that is all in one place and is relevant to you - a forecast for your life.
Kite and �� R&D - How the weather affects every day plans and how �� Weather can help you adapt your activities
CTI, Milky Tea and �� Cardiff - a �� Weather app with a crowdsourced weather data feature
The Swarm - Visualising weather information and user contributions by time and location
Nixon Mcinnes and �� R&D - using Twitter to deliver personal weather forecasts for particular locations
�� R&D - Weather stations for Schools providing location content

Once again it was impressive to see what could be built in two days. Great work by everyone and we will let you know within a few weeks which ideas we would like to develop as pilots - after a tough judging process by myself, Jo Wickremasinghe, Liz Howell, Ben Gammon, Jeremy Tarling and Stephen Robertson. Thanks also to John Bevan and the team at MozSpace, London for agreeing to host the Studio and provide an excellent working environment.

Finally, a reminder that we still have a few places left for the CBeebies Creative Studio up in Salford on July 12 - this is available to all �� staff as well as external companies with relevant experience.

The CBeebies brief (MS Word .doc) is out. To apply email ConnectedStudios@bbc.co.uk with "CBeebies Creative Studio" as the subject line.

Information on Connected studio will be changing regularly so keep up to date with @��_Connected and our website www.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk.

Adrian Woolard is the Project Director, North Lab, �� Research and Development and is responsible for Phase 1 of the Connected Studio programme

Technology + Creativity at the �������� Feed