Met office GA products severely lacking

[piperboy84]

Am I the only one that thinks the Mets website and apps are both a complete load of shyte and of very limited utility. As a paying subscriber to the Met Office GA products it seems to me that during the layout and design phase of developing their site they must have decided to get the most awkward bar steward possible to put it together.

[robin]

No you're not the only one.

The old Met Office site was clunky but because it was text-based was easier to access in areas of poor connection (ie most farm strips and rural airfields)

Like all companies they have gone down the 'mobile-first' path of app design and employed people to develop the Met Office website who have nothing to do with aviation.

Particular bugbears:

1) constantly having to log-in. For some reason every week or so I have to log-in even though I have it set for 'remember login details'

2) The Form 215 prognosis is hopeless being updated at midday and midnight. If we have 4 Form 215s a day why can't we have 4 prognoses matching the following 6 hour period - it's because they graft in an image from the public-facing site.

3)The TAF/METAR page is glitchy. Sometimes it doesn't show the region list. You have to go to another page then try to load it from elsewhere (happens in Windows and Android)

But the Met Office are trying hard to commercialise the produce to gain income from us, even though there are other sites that are better and free. It isn't working.

[oggers]

I agree it is second rate. Contrast with the states where met service is not only way better but you do not pay to access the data their tax dollars already paid for.

[TelsBoy]

I also agree that I preferred the old site. It was very easy to use and read.


Since its changed I have problems logging in and find the layout a bit chaotic.


"Progress".


(Edit:- Just to add I quite like the automatic Wx warning getting e-mailed to me, however some of them are a bit extreme. Currently there's been a "strong wind warning" in force since early this morning at my home base where all morning the wind has been a mighty 8kts. And the incessant "ground/air frost warning" has been happening multiple times practically every day since November. Apparently I need to beware that there is a rick of frost in the winter. No sh*t, sherlock... :rolleyes:)

[JOE-FBS]

When this awful redesign was being trialled (two years ago?), I not only moaned along with many forumites in The Other Place, I also sent my moans to the Met' Office. Consequently, I was invited to have a conference call with their web developer. This call lasted IIRC about an hour and a half. The developer was quite open that he knew nothing about aviation and the idea that people might be operating in the field with a very low data rate clearly did compute (deliberate pun, sorry) with him. Anyway, half of my Friday afternoon was wasted and nothing of any significance changed. Essentially, since the change I have used SkyDemon to access weather. Which probably works for the Met' Office since SkyDemon probably has to pay directly for the service and I only pay indirectly as a UK tax payer. They have advertising on the Met' Office site FFS. Still, what can we expect, large segments of the UK have spent the large parts of the last forty years voting for parties (Conservatives and New Labour) that want to destroy public services so everything ends up "in the market". It's also why our ATC system is so screwed, I imagine the USA will be the same in a few years if they really do privatise ATC there.

..and breathe!

[Maoraigh1]

I also complained, but am happy with the final product free to pilots.
Only minor gripe is that frequently the prognosis map is in fact for the same time as the forecast.

[bern444]

Here is a good alternative place -https://www.aviationweather.gov/taf

B

[A Leron]

The most useful information that is now no longer available to GA was the 3-day forecast. When it disappeared, I phoned the Met Office and they said it wouldn't feature in future. Grrr.

[Whopity]

I was involved with some validation of new Met Office data after I complained about the change over. Two things became very apparent, they had no idea who their main customer base was or how they were going to use the data. They had little or no knowledge of alternative products or data sources and finally they had already made up their mind, so listening to the users whomsoever they might be, was not on their agenda.

[Johnm]

I rarely use the Metoffice data, it’s poorly presented and the idea I might pay for it is laughable.

[alex90]

I was involved with some validation of new Met Office data after I complained about the change over. Two things became very apparent, they had no idea who their main customer base was or how they were going to use the data. They had little or no knowledge of alternative products or data sources and finally they had already made up their mind, so listening to the users whomsoever they might be, was not on their agenda.

Well that's obvious... There is a reason why there is a specific job titled "User Experience Designer" whose job is not just making up where buttons and boxes go to be logical for users without making them look pretty - but specifically - the initial research, talking to the end user, watching them presently use the system, seeing where these users struggle or fail, and help design a user journey to ensure that whatever blocks were present in the previous version don't feature in the future of the product. You then iterate the new user journey, to tailor it to the customers in (oh I cringe at the use of the word because nobody seems to use it or understand it correctly in my industry) "AGILE" way. AGILE in my world means: ask customers, think with team, prepare the work, review with customers, do a small bit so as to not go over budget but enough to see what the end result would be like, review with team and then review with customers, then build v1 as a "minimum viable product" (means: least number of features possible to make it useable) before reviewing it with the team, and again with customers checking concerns have been addressed, again addressing new concerns, before going back to step one to refine current features before adding further features and re-iterating).

This may seem like a longer way to build anything, because criteria is ever evolving and therefore ever changing, as such it is difficult to put a definite timeline, a definite end of the project and hence budget in place. However, the end result, even after v1 or v2 will be so significantly better than any previous version, simply because it is tailor made for the intended customer, that it means that the money hasn't been wasted on a crappy "new" version of their presently offered content (as is what happened here).

It is a shame being one of those people who understand the problems faced by companies, and yet seeing them fail time after time because they refuse to ask the customers what they need and what they want.

[FREDAcheck]

I think it is important to have someone looking at the user experience (by talking to users) separate from the system designers and coders.

When the designers/coders talk to users, they tend to look for confirmation that their design is correct, and ignore any evidence that users don't like it. Users that don't like their wonderful design are "stupid", stuck in the past and unwilling to change.

One sees this sometimes with Open Source software, where often there is no separate user experience team. I recently looked at a few issues in the Vivaldi (open source browser) forum, and where users suggested changes, their ideas were often dismissed without much discussion, sometimes quite rudely. You don't like our wonderful browser? Go back to Internet Explorer, you don't deserve anything better.

[mikehallam]

Personally the TAF & METARs are concise and accurate, choose a few for the areas you need if venturing further afield.

This might excite you too ? https://www.ventusky.com/?l=pressure&w=0DAkXVvsb

mike hallam.

[alex90]

I think it is important to have someone looking at the user experience (by talking to users) separate from the system designers and coders.

When the designers/coders talk to users, they tend to look for confirmation that their design is correct, and ignore any evidence that users don't like it. Users that don't like their wonderful design are "stupid", stuck in the past and unwilling to change.


Completely agree - unfortunately, many people "selling themselves" as "AGILE" or "SCRUM" or even "User Experience Designers" are all too often, just waterfall people who fancy themselves a bit trendy, but invariably end up doing what the client (read: metoffice in this case) wants irrespective of what the actual consumers need. The only successful people I know, have to persuade the client to trust them first to get a blank canvas and start afresh. When you're trying to work for a large organisations it is very tough to fight your battles... Especially when the people at the top don't understand the principle of letting others make decisions that are best for them... The few I have seen doing this well however, have ended up revamping old systems in incredible ways!