Minimum Viable Product App
Functionality Requirements
Location List Functionality
The location list screen will include relevant weather locations to the user (i.e. own devices and followed locations) alongside functionality to edit locations, rearrange locations, and add & set up Ecosphere weather stations. This would give persona Sarah quick access to the locations she and her family frequents (e.g. school and work), and it would give persona John easy access to the status and data of his purchased weather stations.
Weather Information Content and Functionality
City: The city weather screens will include location information, current weather, and forecasted weather. Cities without the minimum number of Ecosphere weather stations to provide an accurate city average will use third-party data and contain a call-to-action to purchase a station or share a coupon to address the problem of lack of Ecosphere weather network coverage.
Weather Station: This screen includes station and location information, historic weather data, current weather, and forecasted weather.
Search and Map Functionality
The search interface will help users find specific locations and stations with functionality to sort and filter. The user can also browse via the map interface and view curated locations and content. This is necessary for Sarah to add her locations for the first time or view weather for a one-off location (e.g. for a family day trip), and for John to browse weather across different areas or add a new location (e.g. for an upcoming trip).
Support and Miscellaneous Functionality
Onboarding: The first app screens the user will see will explain the value and usage of the app before the user is presented with the signup and login prompt, after which they can continue to browse public locations or set up a purchased Ecosphere weather station. The app introductions would help users like Sarah to better understand and confirm how they can benefit from using the app.
Weather Station Setup: The customer is guided through the setup of their Ecosphere weather station including internet connection, account connection, privacy settings, and general settings (e.g. naming). This is necessary for John to set up his purchased weather station to a working status.
Settings: The user can view and change account, notification, weather, and station settings.
Architecture
We developed clear structure with hierarchy determined by how users use the app, while ensuring that structure would work seamlessly for both personas John, a weather station customer, and Sarah, an app-only user.
After the initial onboarding screens, the app funnels the user to where they want to go, whether they are a weather station customer needing to set up their device for the first time, a first-time app-only user seeking for weather information, or an existing user. With this setup, both personas John and Sarah can achieve their goals without going through unnecessary screens.
The three primary screens and main navigation tabs are Browse and Search, My Locations, and Settings, based on the primary uses of finding a location and viewing its weather. The other screens fall under the three primary screens based on their logical relationships and relevance to each other (see red screens).
The meat and bones of the app are the weather information screens, which are similar in content and functionality with a few distinctions. For example, weather station owners can make changes to their station settings from the weather information screen and city weather information screens with third-party data will not have BloomSky weather station data including photo collages (see teal screens).
The weather station setup process can be initiated either after the onboarding screens or from the settings for the multitude of use cases around setting up a weather station, including first purchase and setup, following purchases and setups, relocation, replacement, repair, and resetting (see yellow screen).
Last updated
