BBC Weather forecast page for Birmingham showing the 'Further ahead' button

Just over two weeks ago I posted a blog about the major upgrade we made to the BBC Weather website, introducing new hourly forecasts for UK locations and three hourly forecasts for International locations.

Yesterday we introduced extended forecasts, providing ten day forecasts for all our locations.

When you select a forecast location on BBC Weather you will see the forecast for today and the next four days in the tabs across the top of the page. Above the 'Find a Forecast' box you will now see a 'Further ahead' button which will take you to the following 5 days forecasts (i.e. into next week).

You can go back to the first five days by clicking the same button which now says 'First five days'.

After selecting the ‘Further Ahead’ button you see the five day forecast into the following week. The ‘First five days’ button will take you back to the previous week

You will also notice that the forecast data granularity decreases over time. In the UK we have hourly data for the first two days, which then decreases to three hourly forecasts for the next three days, and then day/night forecasts for the final five days of the 10 day forecast.

The day/night forecasts are shown as ranges – for the day’s high temperatures and night’s low temperatures.

You may also notice that the further ahead the forecast, for example days nine and ten, the ranges can be quite wide and day/night temperatures may even overlap as shown in the example above.

Whilst this may seem quite strange it is just a reflection of the confidence levels of the forecast that far into the future.

The nearer the forecast we can provide more granular and confident predictions, but further ahead the uncertainly increases. We hope that despite the uncertainty of the further ahead forecasts that you still find them valuable and helpful. I look forward to your feedback and comments.

Jo Wickremasinghe is the Head of Product for BBC Weather in BBC Future Media

This new data set gives us more granular data, both in terms of the number of forecast points across the UK (a tenfold increase), and in terms of granularity and frequency of the forecasts themselves.

The new data was rolled out in time for the start of the Torch Relay, which enabled the BBC Weather Centre to give more detailed forecasts along the Torch Relay route. Today we rolled out a change to the BBC Weather website to make the most of this rich new data set.

The most dramatic improvement we have implemented today is hourly forecasts for UK locations.

You can see in the image below that 24 hours' worth of data is a lot of information to squeeze onto the page and still make it readable and user friendly.

A 24 hour forecast for Exter Devon, with a graphical layout

We developed and audience tested various layouts, and finally came up with two options.

The first view is a 'graphical' layout which shows the forecast data divided by time on the horizontal axis and the range of temperatures on the vertical axis. The scale of the vertical axis automatically adjusts depending on the maximum and minimum temperatures, maintaining a fixed space on the page.

The first day shown is a moving window, showing the remaining weather for the current day, whereas the following days' forecast shows a full 24 hours of weather.

As you might expect the granularity of the weather data reduces the further ahead in time you go. So as you move from two to three days ahead, the forecasts go from hourly to three-hourly. In the near future we will also be introducing 'Further Ahead' extending us out to nine days of weather forecasts.

Back to the challenge of space… in addition to the most common forecast data that users want (temperatures, weather icon/type and wind speed) we had the challenge of also displaying additional information like humidity and wind direction.

To keep things nice and compact we've introduced a hover-over state, which shows all the additional forecast data:

Additional weather forecast data which comes up when you hover the mouse over a weather icon.

However we also recognised that many users prefer an expanded tabular view of weather forecast information, which does not rely on the hover-over box, and is therefore more accessible.

This second, 'table', layout (the button to switch between the views is below the "Find a Forecast" box) takes up more page real estate but gives the full detailed forecast at one glance, which may be preferable to some users.

If you're using cookies, the browser should remember your preference the next time you come back to visit the BBC Weather website.

The detailed table view of the 24 hour weather forecasts

To accommodate the new page design we moved around other elements on the page.

You will now find the regional forecast text summary under the forecast data, in line with the environmental summary data (UV, Pollen and Pollution) and the regional forecast video.

In the near future we'll be further improving this section by adding colour scales to highlight the severity of the environment summary data, much like we use colour for the temperature scales.

Better World Weather

In addition to delivering hourly forecasts for UK locations, we now also have three hourly forecasts for international locations - a vast improvement from our previous day/night only forecasts.

You can see in the example below that we have adapted the same layout of graph and table views to work for both UK and international forecast data.

An example of an international weather forecast using the Graph view

Other Improvements

In my last post I mentioned we had implemented RSS feeds on our forecast pages, but one reader keynet pointed out that we had in fact only implemented the three day forecast RSS feed:

The "Observations" RSS feed appears to be broken since Monday this week, the example given on your RSS page for Manchester (http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/9/ObservationsRSS.xml) for example gives "Temperature: N/A (N/A), Wind Direction: N/A, Wind Speed: N/A, Relative Humidity: N/A, Pressure: N/A, N/A, Visibility: N/A" London is same. Forecasts are still working though.

In today's release we have also added in the Observation RSS feed to our forecast pages, which is available from the same RSS icon (the unblurred box below).

The observations RSS feed is now available alongside the 3 day forecast RSS feed

We've also added a link directly to the 'UK Monthly Outlook' from the weather homepage https://meleleh.pages.dev/weather as many users didn't know it was accessible from the 'More UK Weather' page.

As mentioned above we've got a few more improvements coming soon - nine day forecasts and improved designs for the environmental data. I'll come back with another blog update as soon as we release this next set of improvements, and in the meantime I look forward to your feedback and comments.

Jo Wickremasinghe is the Head of Product for BBC Weather in BBC Future Media

Since then we've continued to receive and review feedback from you about how we can further improve the BBC Weather site. We have been working on a few of these changes over the past weeks and months. Today we released a couple of changes we hope you'll like.

Page ambiences

In November Melanie Seyer gave a detailed overview of the BBC Weather Design Refresh in Pictures. In that post Melanie described our plan to introduce page ambience as a way for us to inject personality into the site, by reflecting the current weather at your selected location. Today we've rolled out page ambiences for both UK and International locations. The ambience reflects the latest forecast for the selected location.

Sunny skies over Canterbury, Kent

Heavy rain shower in Faro, Portugal

Couldy skies over Warsaw, Poland

Light snow falling in Anchorage, Alaska

The return of RSS

Quite a few of you have been asking when we would enable RSS feeds on the new BBC Weather site. In December Jeremy Tarling described how the new BBC Weather site was re-designed to a three-tier architecture as part of the BBC's wider strategy to move to a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). As a result we had a bit of work to do to publish RSS feeds from our new service layer. This work is finally complete and in today's release we've enabled RSS on all forecast pages. You'll see the orange RSS icon next to the Share Tools, under the Find a Forecast box.

Other Improvements

We've had feedback that some of you were having problems saving your favourite forecast locations. So we've made some changes to the Find a Forecast box, to make it easier to save your favourite locations. After you have searched for your location, click the + Add to Favourites link which appears above the Find a Forecast box. Read more about how to personalise your BBC Weather page on our Help and FAQ page.

We've added a timestamp to the top of the forecast pages, so you can see the last time the forecast data was refreshed (the time shown is GMT).

Last updated timestamp on forecast pages

In addition we recently updated the performance of the maps so all the tiles load together. You may also see a loading indicator whilst you are waiting for the weather to appear over the map. We've done some work to make a much smoother transition between forecast times once the images have loaded. And now the arrows on the timeline are adjacent to each other, so it's easy to flick back and forth and watch the weather progress over time.

We will continue to review your feedback, and work to deliver new features and improvements in future. We've answered some of your questions on our Frequently Asked Questions page, and I look forward to reading your comments here.

Jo Wickremasinghe is the Head of Product for BBC Weather in BBC Future Media

Late yesterday we rolled out major code changes that allowed us to return the BBC Homepage back to its fully customisable state. This work required us to clean out the data store that was holding previous customisation settings, so when users next visit the BBC Homepage they will see the default page once more.

However, users can now add back their favourite homepage settings. You can set your location to get your local weather and news, and we've provided links through to all the BBC local radio pages in the radio module. To add your favourite feeds to the various modules, click on the edit buttons on the top right corner of each module, select the feed you are interested in, and then hit save. To learn more about customising the BBC Homepage, see our FAQs: https://meleleh.pages.dev/home/faqs/.

We are aware however that some users are still reporting ongoing issues. We have since found a bug that is causing the homepage to flip back to the default settings for some users, when you click away and then return to the homepage. For example if you set your location, click to another part of the BBC website then return to the homepage, the location appears to reset to the default. Your settings are actually still available, and a hard refresh (CTRL+F5) should get them to return. But we have got a fix for this issue, and it should be in place by Monday.

Thank you for your patience over the past 3 weeks as we worked to return the BBC Homepage back to its fully customisable state.

(Ed's note - NR: Also see Jo's further update in her comment from 17 June)

(Ed's latest note - PM: Jo's done a new post on the problems with the homepage where you can leave comments, 25 June 2010.)

Those of you visiting the BBC homepage today will have noticed that your personalised settings are not available, and instead you are seeing the standard default homepage.

We are currently experiencing technical issues which are preventing us from showing any customisation or modifications you have made to the BBC Homepage. These include your settings for:

• Your local weather location
• Local news, TV and Radio
• Added or removed modules
• Added or removed feeds within modules
• Changes to your homepage colour choice

Any changes you previously made to the BBC homepage, before these technical difficulties began, should be available when the status of the page is returned to normal.

We apologise for any inconvenience you experience during this time.

Jo Wickremasinghe is Head of Homepage and Syndication Services.

In my last blog post in March I talked about the reasons for launching the new version of the BBC homepage and pointed out that most of the work for this update has been to move the site to a new technical architecture. Back in May 2008 the BBC announced plans to build a new service-oriented architecture to accommodate the increasing number of visitors to BBC websites and to enable new features to be delivered more quickly. The BBC homepage is one of the first sites to be moved to the new infrastructure.

During the homepage beta we introduced a new navigation bar across the top of the page to facilitate easier and faster access to the most popular sites across the BBC. If the site you're looking for isn't listed simply choose from the 'More' drop down menu or type what you're looking for in the Search box.

The new navigation bar is slowly being rolled out across the entire BBC website - it was included in the recent re-launch of the Dr Who website. While these changes are not actually part of the new global visual language (GVL) that was announced in February, they are certainly stepping stones in that direction. As the GVL evolves we'll be looking to incorporate an increasing number of elements on the BBC homepage over time.

To fit the most popular links onto the navigation bar and allow for consistency across all BBC web sites, we kept the overall size down and as a result we removed the clock from the BBC Homepage header. However, during the public beta the feedback from many users was that the clock was sadly missed. So we've built a new and improved clock module which takes its time from the clock on your PC. The new module also shows you the time-zone that your clock is set to, and it can be collapsed to a slim-line clock. The new clock module makes use of upcoming HTML standards, which you can read more about at our BBC Web Developer blog.

The clock module is on the right hand side of the BBC homepage just below the Media Zone. If you prefer, you can remove it from your homepage by clicking the 'x' at the top right corner of the module.

During the homepage beta, we also introduced a new module called Topic Tracker. We learnt a lot from the feedback of users who tried out Topic Tracker during the homepage beta, and we think there are a few improvements we still need to make before we launch Topic Tracker on the main homepage for all users. However, if you are interested in trying it for yourself, Topic Tracker is available in the 'Customise Panel'.

To add the Topic Tracker module to your BBC homepage go to 'Customise this page' panel at the bottom of the homepage, tick the checkbox for Topic Tracker, and hit 'Save'. The module will appear in the top left hand corner of the homepage, and you can move the module on the page by simply grabbing the top of the module and dragging to another location.

We've made lots of other changes and improvements to the homepage, and the new platform will allow us to continue to deliver new features and improvements more quickly and easily. To learn more about the new BBC homepage, check out the Frequently Asked Questions.

Jo Wickremasinghe is Head of Homepage and Syndication Services.

Last week we launched a new version of the BBC homepage at http://beta.bbc.co.uk. At first you might think the beta homepage seems pretty familiar, with its modular customisable layout. But take a closer look and you'll notice we've made a number of significant improvements.

Let me start by providing some background on why we released this new BBC homepage beta. Back in May 2008 the BBC announced plans to build a new service-oriented architecture, to help us scale our products and services, keep up with ever evolving web technologies and to deliver new features more quickly. The BBC homepage is one of our first sites to be moved to this new infrastructure.

Initially we planned a simple 'lift and shift' of the current homepage to the new platform. However, since we had to completely rebuild the homepage for the new architecture, it would have been remiss for us not to deliver some new features and improvements to the site.

The first improvement you'll notice on the beta homepage is the introduction of a new navigation bar across the top of the page. With the new navigation bar you'll get easier and faster access to the most popular sites across the BBC. If the site you're looking for isn't listed, simply choose from the 'More' drop down menu, or type what you're looking for in the Search box.

Very soon this navigation bar will appear across the entire BBC web site - not just the homepage. In order to fit the most popular links onto the navigation bar and allow for consistency across all BBC web sites, we had to keep its overall size down. As a result we have (somewhat controversially) removed the clock from the BBC homepage header. We've already received feedback from some users who miss the clock, but rest assured we are working on a clock module to be released soon, which you'll be able to add to your personalised version of the homepage.

One of the strengths of bbc.co.uk is that we have depth and breadth of online content. But it also creates a challenge, as we have too much content to try and fit onto the homepage all at once. The new Media Zone is a promotional area at the top of the page that showcases the range of content, and helps users discover more of the BBC. Simply roll your mouse over the thumbnails to scroll through the content.

Two key themes for our online team's product releases over the coming months are "Personalisation" and "Now", allowing you to tune your BBC experience to the things that you're interested in, as well as showcasing what's happening across the BBC at that time.

In terms of personalisation user testing showed us that while people liked the ability to remove, rearrange or add widgets on the BBC what people valued more was finer-grained personalisation of content within those widgets. So, for example, the updated music widget now lets you choose your favourite music genres and it delivers the latest matching music programmes.

We've also introduced several features to give you a better sense of what's happening across the BBC right now.

On the BBC iPlayer widget there is a new "Just In" feature that allows you to see programmes as soon as they become available in iPlayer. Another key part of the "now" proposition is the introduction of Topic Tracker, a new widget we're trialling which gives you a unique way to keep up to date with the topics you're interested in.

Topic Tracker allows quick and easy access to the breadth of BBC content tailored to your personal interests - from your favourite shows to hot topics and stories. Simply click on an image from the hot topics, or search for your own favourite topics. Then select the best match from the list provided and you're set to get frequent updates on your interests.

In the example shown, I'm tracking Barack Obama, Lewis Hamilton and Kylie Minogue. So when I return to the homepage I see the latest BBC content on each of my interests. In this case I've got the latest news articles related to Barack Obama and Lewis Hamilton, but there have been no new stories about Kylie Minogue in the past 24 hours.

You can expand or collapse the number of stories you see using the arrows next to the topic name. The topics listed in Topic Tracker are provided by our Search team. At the start of this year, we told you about enhancements to our site search, a consequence of which is that we can start to bring more relevant and up to date content to other BBC sites.

Topic Tracker already offers more than 11,000 topics from across the BBC, and we'll continue to add more topics over time. One of the benefits of Topic Tracker is that we'll be able to see the most popular topics across our audience, allowing us to create a real-time zeitgeist of the hottest topics, as determined by our users.

The new beta homepage also includes many design tweaks which you'll find makes it faster to load and easier to use. For example the iPlayer and Music module carousels now use simple left and right arrows to scroll through the carousel content. The addition of time stamps for the top news stories shows you the latest updates at a glance, and we've used a refreshed colour palette to simplify the page experience.

These visual changes are not actually part of the new global visual language (GVL) that we announced last month, but certainly stepping stones in that direction. As the GVL evolves we'll be looking to incorporate more elements of the new visual language on the BBC homepage.

Finally, the new technical architecture we mentioned at that start of this blog post will help us deliver many more improvements across all of our online products and services. In future you'll be able to seamlessly roam your personalised BBC homepage across all your devices. For example you'll be able to add your favourite football club to Topic Tracker, and then see your same favourite topics on your mobile phone, office computer, and perhaps one day even on your TV courtesy of services like Canvas.

We've made many other smaller improvements to the homepage, and the new platform will allow us to continue to deliver new features more quickly and easily. Try the new beta homepage and tell us what you think.

Jo Wickremasinghe is Head of Homepage and Syndication Services.