New BBC Weather beta site

[Guest]

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[Vile Consort]

Disagree quite strongly actually. The new site seems much less cluttered and more intuitive. They've got rid of a lot of stuff on the front page that I'm not interested in, viz. UK highlights and the menu down the left hand side.

When you select a location, it immediately opens up to the hour by hour forecast for today, which is what I am always interested in, and on the old site you had to click in a rather non-obvious place to get that. And, again, all those spurious sections that I never use have been eliminated. The information I do want has then been made larger and clearer.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks for pointing it out, bts, but I very much agree with Vile Consort - I prefer the new page on first acquaintance, a lot clearer it seems to me and delivering the info I need as a cyclist who needs to know what to wear for the next hour, and in a few hours' time on returning home.

[Anna]

I've spent 5 minutes switching between the old and new weather pages, apart from agreeing with BtS that the animated map was preferable, I prefer the horizonatal layout of the day rather than the vertical, it means I don't have to scroll down. I only check the weather first thing though and the Met Office if conditions are going to be severe. I have the BBC as my homepage and the new Beta version of that is, to me, a complete mess, far too fussy, with far too much information of no interest to me, compared with the old page

[johnb]

People might want to take a look at the Met Office website as an alternative.

I've been using it for some years and find it pretty good. Once you set your location the website remembers it (presumably via a cookie) for your next visit.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html

[Don Petter]

My first impression is that the new site is too much 'in your face', and I also miss the colours for temperature. I find the old one pretty intuitive be able to open up a day and I just ignore all the usual irrelevant web-site cr*p round the edges.

The new wind icons are not so clear (uncoloured again) and although I like the map giving temperatures of the surrounding area (ideal for seeing 'where should we head for today?') I expected it to change from Saturday's map to Sunday's when I clicked on the upper tab and all the other data changed. It didn't, and you have to go down below that map and click again - Surely these should be linked?

As an aside, I used to like Metcheck (metcheck.com) for my default weather page, but of late it has too many error message failures and even hung my machine a few weeks ago.

I've now been converted to XCWeather on the recommendation of a local glider pilot (http://www.xcweather.co.uk/forecast/London). I think he may like it because it has a good rapid indication of winds, but it also has good colouring for temperature, cloud cover and pressure. You can toggle between advanced and summary views, the latter being particularly uncluttered.

[Vile Consort]

... snip ...
I'm interested, Vile Consort, in what spurious sections are now longer there as on my screen, the same sections seem to be there.

Actually, you might be right! But they have been pushed down to the bottom out of the way and made smaller, so that the stuff at the top (which is all you see unless you have a humongously large screen) is just the stuff you want - viz today's weather.

But in general, it's another case of "quot homines" I think. For those of us who make a living out of designing software, it probably tells us that we shouldn't worry too much about how the information is presented. Tell my bosses that, though! It's all they care about. Whether it is correct is secondary at best.

[Don Petter]

Thanks for both those links. Don..where does your friend fly from? Booker?

East Sussex Gliding Club at Ringmer.

[doversoul1]

Help! Where has my weather page gone?

I had BBC Weather page for my homepage but now I am told it cannot be found. I can still find it through BBC all services link but I don’t seem to make it into my homepage now. Is this something to do with this new site? I see a headline flickering but have not seen it.