When I decided to do this redesign of the FMI Weather app back in 2023, it was rated 1,7 stars out of 5 on the App Store.
Kind of a visual mess
Because of the poor reception, I thought this app would be the perfect target for a redesign with a lot of potential for improvement over the original.
Browsing the app and going over a number of reviews gave me some idea of why it was so poorly received. There were multiple issues:
The visual design looked messy.
Every element of the interface seemed to be of similar importance or weight – there was no clear visual hierarchy.
Too much information was shown at once and the information was too detailed. It was hard to quickly form opinions and make comparisons.
At some point, it seems there were technical issues and the app did not work as intended.
In the redesign, I wanted to do three things:
Rethink the visuals.
Remove or hide content that I thought was superfluous.
Display some information differently.
My goal was an uncluttered UI that conveyed the relevant information at a glance.
Of course, my own bias comes into play in the redesign. I don't care about detailed weather data – but others might. When I was thinking about the design, I tried to do my best to cater to the average user (or what I think of as the average user).