Messing with the weather
Almost the only personalised element of the current BBC homepage is the weather forecast - and it is a salutary lesson in the importance of getting personalisation right. As a feature it generates more complaints in the homepage's email inbox than anything else. The complaints usually fall into two camps - the forecast was wrong, or the page got my location wrong.
Users get very frustrated when the page "forgets" where they live - this happens when a user's cookies are cleared or reset, which can happen frequently within corporate network environments for example. Promising and then failing to deliver personalisation really aggravates your audience, as experience working with the BBC homepage has shown me.
It was always a gripe of mine when I was at the BBC that the weather defaulted to Central London - I thought it made the Corporation look lazily London-centric. So along with one of my producers we hatched a plan to change it. The default location was going to move around the country. We picked a set of "representative" cities - Cardiff, Swansea, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham and so on. The idea was that for a week at a time the default location would be one of these places other than London. It would do two things:
- Show the BBC homepage acknowledged there was life in Britain outside Broadcasting House in WC1
- Demonstrate the functionality of that area of the page - that the location could be changed.
Anyone who had already set their weather cookie to a specific location would be unaffected - it would only be new users and those who hadn't ever entered their postcode into the site who would see the changes.
We started by moving the default location to Glastonbury to coincide with last year's music festival.
I was completely unprepared for the storm of protest that followed - the BBC received hundreds of emails complaining. Now, a good proportion of these must have come from irate Londoners who had never had to set their postcode cookie because the weather forecast was always relevant to them. We hadn't changed anybody's personalised forecast, but we had changed the forecasts of people who perceived that the web site had detected they lived in London. The volume, and ferocity, of complaints though were enough for us to decide to abandon the plan.
So any design of homepage that relied on a lot of personalisation would also need to look at what happens when people can't access their personalised features - what is the default view for a user who "can't be bothered" with setting up lots of new features?
And what would a Web 2.0 version of the homepage's weather panel look like - assuming you still think there is space for the weather in your design.
Is it a video loop?
What about comparing the BBC's weather forecast with some forecasts from elsewhere?
Should it be restricted to UK locations, as it is now, or be international?
Or would you use one of the mapping services with APIs to put the icons onto their proper locations, and allow the user to scroll around to their location rather than using a postcode look-up?
Could it be interactive and also be a place where people can submit their weather reports - like "The People's Weather" idea on backstage.bbc.co.uk?
Or might it just also show somewhere where the weather is worse than the user's current location, to cheer them up?
- 04 May 2006 13:45
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dear martin,
i think the user should be prompted to set the weather to his/her currnet location so that the site can remember it. other than that, maybe a small forecast for the next 3 days in the weatherview would be handy.
but, regarding your problem, i solved it by displaying a map of ALL of the UK, so no quarrels preprogrammed ;) ofcourse you can change the location to whatever you want in a jiffy.
I'm a local authority IT trainer & tutor 100s of 'Beginners to the Internet' each year.
Because it is a recognised brand and the content is familiar to just about everyone (Eastenders etc) we introduce web basics using bbc.co.uk.
Please remember when you design that Net literacy is like national reading and numeracy. Many have only most basic of net skills.
The where I live 'Change Location' feature & Weather causes more confusion than anything else (except Search).
Weather: On the Homepage I would have one link (WEATHER) to a UK map showing the general overview. (Like the C4 map.) On Homepage have icons as at present showing sunny/rain etc.
As you move the pointer over the map a ‘tipbox’ informs you which area or town you’re are over. On many maps it’s difficult to work out which areas Nottingham, Sheffield & Manchester etc are on as they’re on the borders of different areas.
I would make it both clickable (Go to that area’s forecast) and also have the list of local forecasts down the side. When you get an area’s forecast there's a big 'Make my weather on Homepage' button under or alongside.
The area list should still be visible. Offer both. Make it easy & transparent as possible. As a climber my weekend plans are often dictated by the weather in each area, so I want to quickly switch areas. The Yahoo list of towns is far too long.
I would also have links to international forecasts (visual as possible). People go on holidays or know people living aboard.
Yes I like APIs but they’re not intuitive to many people esp.seniors so have more than one way of navigation.
People’s weather: put on local BBC sites. Very useful in cases of heavy snow/rain. Is such ‘n’ such road clear etc.
Where I Live (I’d rename it My Local BBC) should take you to a List of local BBC homepages by the station name eg Radio Cornwall. If you have a map have it also visible. (I like draggable maps like the Google one – can you mash with it, eveyone else seems to be.)
Again I think people find the list easier than the maps at present. Click on the one you want to go to that station’s website. Have a big 'Make my Local BBC on Homepage' button visible. It has to be obvious.
The problem with typing postcodes. At present it confuses people. They expect it to take them to a bbc local station - it doesn’t – they return to Homepage & just see their postcode. Click again on ‘Where I Live’ and you still don’t get to local information, you have to choose again from the ‘Where I Live’ page! Pointless.
The other Biggie problem is people type a letter O instead of a Zero 0. It doesn’t take this into account. Did You Know – there wasn’t a zero on a typewriter? Typists used the letter O instead. Even retired secretaries can’t jump this barrier without help. They think they are typing a zero. That’s what they were taught.
Some people also really expect a different forecast for each street if they type different postcodes. Seriously.
The problem with typing town names. Spelling. (Some have low literacy remember.) Type ‘Sheffield’ in and your offered a choice. Many don’t notice this. The other ‘Sheffield, Penzance, Cornwall’ must be minute. I used to live in Penzance & I’d never come across it. (Try and find it on Google maps or Multimap – it ain’t on.) Stick to the BBC Station areas.
SEARCH: Search the Web FIRST but have the top BBC & BBC news results at top of list – many don’t really get the tab system. Thus people can start with a general search and then refine down to BBC or BBC News if they want.
Your analytics should tell you if most searches are across the Web or BBC? Do people start with BBC & then switch to Web before opening the first link?
I’d reverse the system
Hi Tim, thanks for that. I do think it is very easy for people to forget how difficult it can be for people to get to grips with the internet and computers.
That is one reason I always used to suggest to people in my teams that they go to as much user-testing as possible, and really observe a number of people struggling with things that as regular internet users and web professionals they just took for granted.
Hi Martin,
Get in touch with the BBC Open Centres & Buses at local radio stations. They all do basic IT training.
I’m based at BBC Sheffield & you'd be welcome to visit here. Nothing like testing, evaluating and observing. Microsoft do a lot of it.
In your questionnaire I’d ask if people ‘know how to set a page as their homepage’, ‘Save a page in favourites?’ Or ‘Create a shortcut?’ and ‘Have they ever changed their homepage’? My bet is a lot stick with the homepage provided by their ISP, for a variety of reasons. Fear, ignorance, laziness etc.
I’d also use the questionnaire & Have Your Say to ask what other sites people visit regularly and why? I read somewhere that most net users stick to just six sites. It might be interesting to find out what BBC users are interested in & why. It’d also help you evaluate how net literate they are. (Bear in mind the least literate wont take part for that reason. They just click pages.)
I’d have separate ways of commenting in different sections and for different age groups.
I suspect a lot of people get put off by the political topic twisting in the main HYS.
Also don’t forget the local BBC sites. Get links to the questionnaire put on them.
Bon Chance!
I've always thought it silly that the biggest graphic in the current weather section on the homepage is to show you location rather than tell you any weather information. Plus as it's a map, it's easy to confuse it at first glance for a map showing you that a small, perfectly circular shaped cloud is permanently over London...
One the location has been personalised and set, the key is to use up as little space as possible on reminding the user where they selected, whilst still allowing them to change location easily.
In terms of the weather information itself, the two-day forecast with the picto-icon and max/min temperatures does it for me...
Really all I want to know at a glance is: Will it be hot/warm/cold? Dry or wet? (Do I need to take a coat with me? If so what type?)
If it's sunny in the morning will it be wet when I come home in the evening?
What will it be like tomorrow? Will it be wet or dry / hot or cool at the weekend?
I suspect I'm typical? We're only a small island. I understand "rain in the north, sunny in the south."
When I click on weather I don't need too much information.
Getting a feed to my mobile of the weather bullitins recorded by my regional forecaster would be useful though.
Being able to get a forecast (voice or text) to my mobile would be useful as long as I'm not charged.
Hope this is useful.
Jay
All this talk of video loops has brought something to mind. Can we bring the BBC into the 21st Century and ditch the RealNetworks ties? I continue to refuse to keep RealPlayer installed on my system because of its awkwardness. It makes every effort to tie you into other Real products, show adverts and hide in the background. It's very un-BBC to have such commercial ties, particularly with such an anti-competitive company, and as license payers we deserve the choice.