MetService Mobile Weather

MetService forecasts New Zealand’s changeable weather so people can better plan their lives. With digital making this an increasingly competitive environment, Metservice needed to reconsider how they will compete in future. This led to a new proposition, flexing their future plans, while continuing to delight their users. Unlike most weather prediction applications, MetService use the expertise of specialized weather scientists in addition to computer models. The design challenge is presenting very rich data in a way it can easily be consumed by a wide range of people with very different needs.

Beautifully built features with seamless and tactile interactions - like the rain radar with gestural navigation and zoom allows the user to better understand the weather and therefore better plan work or leisure activities. By applying a modular approach to design, users have the flexibility to add and modify weather data to structure and prioritise information most important to them. The design also extends itself to work on larger devices like tablets, and can extend seamlessly to international markets where MetService also works in.

The functionality and the design evolved during the development process with extensive testing of the new features with users. The biggest opportunity is dealing with information relevant to people from all walks of life and some very diverse needs. Different demographics were targeted with their feedback being vital to find design solutions that would accommodate all of their needs. Dropping the charge on the app extended its reach to more users with triple the user count for the app. To date the app has been downloaded more than 200,000 times and usage has tripled with over 100,000 users daily.

New Zealand is an island nation with changeable weather conditions - experiencing 'four seasons in one day' is common. The app includes weather indicators for morning, afternoon, evening and overnight - with specific forecasts provided for these periods just for the app by meteorologists. This makes it easier for Kiwis to plan for the day ahead. An overhaul of the 48-hour graph now includes rainfall animation, and day and night cycles, and the ever-popular rain radar now has a gestural navigation and map zoom so users can plan their day better.