Background

In 2011, the BBC launched a redesigned Weather website; telling a simpler weather story and injecting personality into the BBC Weather brand. Since then we have been gradually evolving the service by adding hourly data, nine-day forecasts and rich, ambient backgrounds.

The next step has been to develop a responsive version for feature phones (non-javascript-enabled), smartphones and tablets. We intend to evolve this smartphone and tablet responsive experience so that it is app-wrapper-ready, and would like to launch iOS, Android and Windows 8 apps towards the end of the year.

We’re inviting agencies to help create the app experience.

What I did

I was responsible for leading the UX work with the external agency to our internal product, design and tech teams.

I gathered all the requirements from stakeholders across the BBC Weather team and used this to write the design brief, this included the projects key objectives, required functionality, it’s deliverables and provisional timelines for the work.

We sent this to a shortlist of design agencies that I had previously researched and shortlisted with my Head of UX, trying to collaborate with those that had a good experience of mobile / tablet native app design. We then invited them into the BBC to pitch their proposals.

Once we had selected the agency, I set up the initial kick off session to introduce the BBC Weather team to Massive Interactive. I invited colleagues from across the business including our product owner to present our roadmap, marketing and audiences to present the data we know about our existing users across our other Weather services and I presented some competitor research that I had been looking into - which showed off current trends in design for Weather Apps across the industry.

I then worked with the external design agency to create a user experience for the BBC Weather App on IOS and Android, that felt part of the BBC Weather brand and part of the BBC app portfolio, whilst being sympathetic to the devices native UX (using familiar interaction patterns where appropriate). I was ensuring design was consistent with the BBC’s Global Experience Language (GEL).

I led the user research phase of this work alongside a design researcher and an external usability testing agency to test out lo-fi concepts and hi-fi user journeys and interaction patterns, ensuring that all learnings were fed back into the design and build.

I oversaw the build with our internal technical team ensuring that the user experience and visual design were implemented properly across the build phase of the project. We moved from a waterfall approach to an agile approach and took part in scrum training to fully understand how the team would work during this transition.

Outcome

We designed, tested and built the BBC Weather App which was instantly a hit with our audiences, getting 5 star ratings in the app stores and great reviews across the industry. It was amazing to see our work in the hands of everybody around us. We also went on to win a Webby Honoree award in 2014.

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