Utterly stupid. You can't see the general weather conditions at a glance any more. No icons showing sun, rain, clouds, etc.

If you click on the "hamburger" menu at the top left of the page and scroll down you have the option of "Visit the Old Site".

Guess what I've just bookmarked?

Technofreak:

If you click on the "hamburger" menu at the top left of the page and scroll down you have the option of "Visit the Old Site".

Guess what I've just bookmarked?

Old site https://old.metservice.com

sumzitup:

Technofreak:

 

If you click on the "hamburger" menu at the top left of the page and scroll down you have the option of "Visit the Old Site".

 

 

 

Guess what I've just bookmarked?

 

Can you share the link to the old site? The menu doesn’t allow scrolling on safari iOS in order to select it.

Here it is. https://old.metservice.com/national/home

sumzitup:

Technofreak:

 

If you click on the "hamburger" menu at the top left of the page and scroll down you have the option of "Visit the Old Site".

 

 

 

Guess what I've just bookmarked?

 

Can you share the link to the old site? The menu doesn’t allow scrolling on safari iOS in order to select it.

If Safari allows you to choose the desktop site, do that and you'll see the link to the old site

tehgerbil:

 

I like it, but a few tweaks are needed.

 

When you visit it from a mobile, please PLEASE put a 'view desktop' link.

 

Change the color scheme, the light blue is appalling on older or dim screens with a poor color gamut.

 

 

My browser, Opera, has a setting which allows you to select the desktop site as a default.

Technofreak:

 

If you click on the "hamburger" menu at the top left of the page and scroll down you have the option of "Visit the Old Site".

 

Guess what I've just bookmarked?

 

I far prefer the old site and have also re-bookmarked it. Problem is, the old site is going to be available only until early December and then we’re going to be stuck with the new one.

rb99:

 

The main maps locations has literally halved, how is that an improvement ?

 

Towns & cities now goes to a separate page instead of a pull down. Whakatane, and everywhere else I guess, only goes to 7 days instead of 10 (not that it was much good anyway).

 

Its very pretty and it sucks, just like every other website redesign I've seen, ever.

 

Humans dont like change, you nailed it. We all didn't like the last change as well, IIRC. I have a feeling, if in 2 years it was changed back to the last version we won't like that either. We like familiarity.

NOTE: you can always place FeedBack by clicking the vertical FeedBack tab on the right hand side of the site page 😀

FineWine:

 

NOTE: you can always place FeedBack by clicking the vertical FeedBack tab on the right hand side of the site page 😀

 

Yep, done that. No idea if they've received it, no acknowledgement so far.

From my perspective, the new site is a big step backwards. I'm a rural user,  and always have the current weather for my region open in a tab in Safari on my iMac, always check the weather over my morning cuppa. The things I need to know are current conditions, likely weather for the day (when's the southerly going to arrive, for instance), and outlook for next 10 days so that I can plan (or change) work schedule to suit weather.

Here's the old site's page for Waipara: https://old.metservice.com/rural/canterbury-plains It's the top Canterbury Plains page, which just happens to be for Waipara. You can get there from the front page by clicking on "rural" at the top of the page, and selecting Canterbury Plains from the drop down menu. One click.

On the new site, there's no drop down menu on the front page, so you have to click "rural", which takes you to a map of the whole country. Click on Canterbury Plains, and you get another map of the whole Plains, and to get to Waipara takes one more click. That delivers a three day forecast for temp and likely rainfall into the box at left of screen. If I scroll down, I can see a 10 day forecast for the Plains, but no temps or rainfall probabilities.

So: click on the "full forecast" at the bottom of the box, and you get a 48 hour forecast, and a scrollable box graphic of weather over the next 48 hours. (I have some detailed criticisms of the graphics in the box, but I'll return to those in a minute.) A menu bar offers "7 Days", "Extended", "Nearby" and "Past Weather". I want to know the week ahead, so I click on 7 Days - and get a box with 7 day forecasts, each day hidden behind a tab. To get a quick picture of the week ahead I have to click 7 tabs! To look 10 days ahead, I then have to click "extended", and I can finally see a table of temps, forecasts and rainfall probabilities.

Now consider what we used to have on the first Waipara page of the old site: graphic box of todays weather in 2-hour chunks, with a tab for the full 48 hours. Links for rain radar and 3-day rain forecast animations, and below a full 10-day Plains forecast with temps and rainfall probabilities. Everything I need to know, available with either one click or a scroll. A very nicely thought out and presented page, available with a minimum of effort. In comparison, the new site is a major downgrade. The information is all there, but hidden behind tabs and making it very difficult to get a decent overview of what's going on.

Now for the graphics: consider the 48 hour forecast on the old site. Click the tab, and you get the next 48 hours across the page. No scrolling or swiping required. At the top, you can read wind direction and strength, numerically and graphically. The forecast temps run across the middle, and then rainfall projections across the bottom. These are given as bars relating to the amount of rain as well as in numbers, so you can see at a glance how much rain might be on the way.

The new site's equivalent is in a scrolling box, but you can click an expand button to see the whole thing at once. The typography is not good to my eyes: the boldest type is used for the least important thing: the time of day. The rainfall graph's bars are replaced by cutesy little raindrop graphics, but they stay the same size so you have to peer at the numbers instead of being able to get a quick impression of what's going on. The daily temp curve is given a stupidly narrow space, so temp changes are compressed - once again reducing the amount of information you can take in at glance. Finally the wind graphics at the bottom are (IMHO) a much worse solution than the original blobs with arrows and numbers inside. With the box open, the page behind will scroll, but it's faded and impossible to see.

I quite understand that information dense web sites need to be updated to work with all sorts of devices, and I'm sure that for some users, in some circumstances on some devices, the new site will be a step in the right direction. From my perspective, it's a triumph of design over usability, and a big step in the wrong direction. Just my 2-pennorth: but it's likely to make me more inclined to use Windy.TV than MetService in future...

Cheers

(If you want to see how windy it is at my place at the moment, take a look at the My Weather page for Canterbury here https://www.metservice.com/maps-radar/weather-stations/canterbury-plains, and click on the blob next to Waipara.)

FineWine:

NOTE: you can always place FeedBack by clicking the vertical FeedBack tab on the right hand side of the site page😀