UX Designer leading user experience design.
Collaborated with founder and two developers.
Weather apps traditionally present data in static, transactional formats, leaving users to interpret complex information without context or emotional resonance. We identified an opportunity to redesign this daily interaction by aligning the experience with users’ real-world goals: answering “How will today feel, and what should I do about it?” As the UX Designer, I aimed to create an interface that reduced cognitive effort, fostered emotional connection, and supported quick decision-making. I defined success as improving the app’s daily engagement and usability while building a product users felt excited to return to. My approach centered on iterative, user-informed design, prioritizing behavior-driven insights over aesthetic experimentation.
We began with qualitative research—interviewing users and observing their weather-checking habits. Patterns revealed that users often consulted multiple sources, seeking validation across apps, yet left feeling uncertain or overloaded by conflicting data. Many users wanted less raw data and more actionable, confidence-building insights. From this, we reframed the experience goal: simplify weather comprehension, reduce app-switching behavior, and instill trust through clarity and coherence. I mapped user journeys and identified critical touchpoints: first glance, hourly exploration, and planning for tomorrow. These informed content hierarchy and interaction priorities. Wireframes focused on progressive disclosure, surfacing the most immediate answers upfront while enabling deeper exploration only when needed. During usability tests, we observed that playful elements initially distracted from task flow. Iterative refinements prioritized intuitive gestures and minimized interruptions, balancing delight with utility. I tested multiple interaction models for temporal navigation, ultimately choosing a scrubber metaphor because users interpreted it faster than alternative controls in testing. Each design iteration was followed by task-based usability tests, measuring time-to-insight, error rates, and user confidence. Improvements included reducing onboarding steps, enhancing visual consistency across forecast types, and clarifying icon meanings based on user confusion points. Throughout, I applied heuristics like visibility of system status and recognition over recall, ensuring that playfulness never compromised predictability or control.
The redesign led to a 95% task success rate for key goals like understanding hourly temperature or precipitation likelihood, validated through moderated usability tests. Post-launch analytics showed a 22% increase in daily engagement and a drop in app-switching behavior, aligning with our goal of becoming users’ primary weather source. User feedback highlighted greater confidence in decisions like outfit choice or activity planning. Deliverables included a full UX research report, journey maps, interactive prototypes tested across three iteration cycles, and annotated design specifications guiding development. The project demonstrated how user-centered design can transform a routine functional check into a seamless, trustworthy, and engaging interaction.