Thunderstorms Abound for the Weather Channel App
Knowing whether to prepare for rain, cold, or extreme heat is essential to our every day lives—making weather apps a staple utility for anyone on the go.
If you're tired of Apple's default weather app and looking for an upgrade, you'll quickly find that there are a lot to choose from in the App Store (we count over 240). So why wouldn't you turn to one of the biggest names in Weather (with a capital 'W') for reliable forecasts and a delightful interface? Fact: The Weather Channel dominates the weather market. But in our opinion, their app fails in ranking high among most other weather apps.
Don't let the full-screen photo background and subtile animation transitions on the main weather screen fool you. Behind the veil of UI polish is a bi-polar, overly complicated, buggy app. Think we're being too harsh? Maybe. Read on...it's about to get stormy.
Our main contentions with the app center around poor UX. Things like:
not being able to remove locations from the search list (scrolling main screen)
locations that exist in the search list but not in favorites (what is the difference between the search list and favorites list anyway?)
overly broad and unfiltered keyword search terms in the social feed (we had a tweet in our feed that read "@willferrell I'm no weatherman, but you can expect more than a few inches tonight." <gasp!>)
frequent app crashes when using the camera
too many features...I'm just here to check the weather, not socialize about it
And while the transitional animations on the weather tab's '+' disclosure, background swiping, and iWitness video queue were a nice touch, there are many missed opportunities in the UI. If we were to improve a few things, we'd change the following:
add depth (either gradient, beveled edge, or drop shadow) near the iAds to make them recede and the app space come forward
make a bigger visual difference between partly cloudy and mostly cloudy graphics
give more clear signals to things that are tapable or scrollable (i.e., on the 'Seasonal' tab we didn't know to scroll to the charts below the fold. Solution: throw a gradient fade overlay at the bottom and top of the screen (like on the social tab) so you can see content disappearing instead of a hard edge.
use pre-set scenery themes for customizable background options instead of your camera roll. We'd much rather be able to change scenery between beach, forest, or mountains to know whether it's sunny, rainy, cloudy than using photos of our dog, cat, or child. With the default weather overlay turned on it looks like they're getting high when it's cloudy outside (see screenshot).
enlarge the radar maps to fill the width of the screen, they are super tiny and some are not tappable to make bigger
And so the hunt for a perfect weather app continues. Until we find one, if you're looking for a new weather app some of our team members recommend these:
"MattyBoh" recommends: Accuweather
Terumi recommends: Weatherº
"My Bryan" recommends: Fahrenheit
We'd like to know: what's your favorite go-to weather app? Tell us in the comments.
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User Interface: B- User Experience: D Usability: C