Wind Freaks makes comprehensible wind forecasts for kiteboarders.
There are a lot of apps forecasting wind for sports enthusiasts. But all of them are underperforming: They haven't crossed the last mile of making a complex forecasting domain simple and understandable for everyday users. I aimed to draft and deliver a user-centred solution.
Team: Me, one-man-show
Being part of the target audience came with both advantages and disadvantages:
On one hand, I knew the domain quite well and could see the problems to tackle.
On the other hand, I had to put extra effort into user interviews to validate if I am a good approximation of a typical user.
I had the hypothesis that showing wind speed as a contingent line helps users better imagine how will the weather evolve. I used D3.j to draw the weather data to test whether this was a good direction to explore.
Results exceeded my expectations so I went forward with further improving this type of visualisation.
One of the challenges was how to highlight different suitable wind speeds and daylight times. I searched for a good tradeoff between colours that are both visually pleasing and convey the wind speed meaning. I also needed to keep a useful spectrum when desaturated to differentiate between daylight and night.
As result, I created a brand style guide that was driven by the selected colour spectrum.
With a core component ready, I designed the rest of the screens. I kept a narrow scope of the functionality to cut down development time and bring the product to users as soon as possible.
