MISSION: Sunshine
Create a standout weather app that not only provides users up-to-the-minute information, but also tailors weather reports to users’ personal temperature preferences.
UX AGENT: Megan Fox
Megan, founder of St. Louis agency Notch Interactive, was tasked with both the user-experience and branding aspects of this project.
CHALLENGE: The Weather is Fickle.
The weather is highly changeable, and can vary from one minute to the next, from one mile to the next mile over. Megan and the Sunshine crew pulled information from several sources — the barometer sensor in phones and user-generated reports of local weather — to provide more accurate information.
CHALLENGE: People Process Weather Differently.
Let’s take Frank and Fred. Frank thinks today is a just-right fall day. Fred thinks today is too blustery, too cold. To complicate matters, while Frank and Fred wake up in the same neighborhood, Frank drives to work at a university in the mountains outside town, while Fred walks down the block to his office.
Frank and Fred wake to the same weather, but process it differently. Then they head off in different directions, into different microclimates.
If Frank and Fred are smart enough to have the Sunshine app, Frank and Fred are all set. Megan explains:
“Users set their home and office locations (or any other location) and their ‘comfort zone,’ which is a generally-preferred temperature range. With this information, Sunshine sends the user a push notification each morning to help prepare them for the day. For example, if the temperature is slightly lower than the user’s ‘comfort zone’ we recommend they grab a light jacket. If there is rain in the forecast around the time they leave work, we remind them to bring an umbrella before heading out for the day.”
Nice work, Agent Fox.
Find Megan at Dribbble and on Twitter.
The UX Files is an occasional series about UX designers. Read last year’s UX Files with Jan Losert, in which Jan tackles a travel-based community site.
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