Yahoo just redesigned its weather app for the first time in 13 years, and it might make you want to delete your default app.
Much has changed about how people use their smartphones in the past two decades, but checking the weather is one habit that remains almost ubiquitous. In a 2019 study, roughly 90% of smartphone users reported having a weather app on their phone, and, per a 2023 YouGov survey, 53% of Americans use weather apps as their primary source of forecast information. Yahoo’s own data shows that the majority of its users opt to check the weather on the brand’s app rather than its website.
The options for weather apps are practically endless: from Google and Apple’s default offerings to The Weather Channel, the social media-style interface Appy Weather, and the rain gauge tool Precip, users have plenty of tools at their disposal. Despite this glut of options, Mike Park, Yahoo’s head of weather and self-described “weather nut,” believes that most apps out there haven’t entirely caught up with the way that people are habitually checking the weather.
“People are not just looking for data, but an easy way to make a decision,” Park says. “They want to know, ‘Should I go outside? What should I wear? What does it mean that the UV is 10? Is that good for me or is that bad for me?’” In real-life conversations and texts alike, Park says, these are the daily conversations that people are actually having about the weather—and their apps should cater to that.
Yahoo Weather’s new app design (powered by data from AccuWeather) is all about anticipating those key questions and building an information architecture that answers them before users even think to ask. Using snappy blurbs and clever visuals, it translates the weather from inscrutable data into easily digestible anecdotes for the group chat meteorologist in us all.
‘We want weather to be beautifully simple’
Park’s original pitch for his new Yahoo Weather app design had three stipulations: “It needs to be more visual, more social, and a little bit more fun.”
When you first open the app, that visual component is immediately clear. Yahoo has long invested in stand-out photography, Park says, and the initial image that users will be greeted with when they log in is a real photo of their local neighborhood representing that moment’s weather. Immediately below that image (no scrolling required), they’ll find the current temperature, an hour-by-hour forecast, and a summary of the current weather, like “sun giving way to clouds,” ”clear,” or “sunny and pleasant.”
This first screen was intentionally designed using user feedback. According to Park, users tend to be frustrated if they can’t find the hourly forecast right away—they don’t want to have to scroll or parse through tabs to locate that information.
“They loved having all of the key information on one screen,” Park says. “If you look at competitors, you’ll see that you kind of have to jump around just to get to the hourly forecast. We’re showing you the hourly right away. The other thing that they really loved was the simplicity of how the information is presented. I worked with our designer and we came up with this design principle: We want weather to be beautifully simple.”
That simplicity is bolstered by the app’s custom voice. Yahoo’s early ‘90s “king of the internet” days might be long behind it, but today, the Yahoo network still has 250 million monthly users who recognize and trust the brand for its optimistic, silly, early-internet vibe. When it comes to the Yahoo Weather app, Park says, that strong brand identity is a key tool.
“Our differentiators are our design and our brand,” Park says. “It’s this focus on being really simple, but a little bit joyful as well. The Yahoo brand allows us to do things that others can’t.”
On the app, Yahoo’s brand voice pops up in the small but informative blurbs sprinkled throughout the interface. Just above the daily forecast, a section called “Coming up” gives users a brief but informative glimpse at what to expect in the near future; like, “A thunderstorm Friday afternoon.”
At the very bottom of the page, a quad of handy statistics give users a snapshot of the wind speed, humidity, UV index, and average visibility. Instead of simply presenting this data, Yahoo’s interface accompanies it with short sentences that answer users’ most common questions, written by Yahoo’s copywriters and content designers.
For example, 81% humidity is described as “Muggy. Wear breathable fabrics” and UV 9 is accompanied by the warning, “Limit sun exposure. SPF 50+ and sunglasses.” The app essentially predicts how users are going to need to interpret this information (what is 81% humidity, anyway?) and removes that step of the process.
“This is the voice of Yahoo coming through, and it helps answer the question of, ‘Why would you reach for Yahoo Weather over reaching for the default weather app on your phone?’” Park says.
Designing for a changing weather landscape
On the week of July 13, New York City was consumed by dense plumes of smoke from Canadian regional wildfires mixing with extreme heat. Throughout that week, many local residents became deeply familiar with a variety of air quality tracking radars as they sought clear intel on whether the air was safe to breathe. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events—including wildfires, severe heat, flooding, and storms—people are increasingly turning to weather apps for answers. Yahoo’s new weather app is designed with those use cases in mind.
“There are a couple personas we thought of when we were designing the new app,” Park says. “One was the group chat meteorologist. Maybe a friend is looking out like, ‘Hey, this is bad. Should we be going into the city or not?’ Or, ‘Hey, I’m going to go to this festival outside. It might be canceled.’ And people are comparing different apps. It proves that weather apps are really, really key at this time as weather gets more extreme.”
For those who want to stay abreast of weather updates, Park’s team designed a notification system that allows them to opt into receiving any advisories and warnings issued by the local government, including air quality warnings, tornado alerts, and flood notices. Users can toggle to settings and decide which locations they’d like alerts for, as well as whether they want alerts for “Extreme,” “Severe,” and/or “Moderate” conditions. Once those preferences are selected, any relevant notices will display directly underneath the app’s opening image. They’ll also pop up in the app’s widget, allowing users to click directly into the notice as soon as they’ve opened their phone.
This kind of more niche data is also woven elsewhere throughout the experience. Under the daily forecast, users can click into a bespoke map that shows a current radar, color-coded by elements like rain, snow, and ice. The map hones in on the user’s location, but can also be expanded into a rotating globe view to track conditions for family and friends around the world. A simple scrubber bar at the bottom of the screen lets users pinpoint exactly when the weather might affect them, accompanied by haptics on some devices.
Another feature helps users understand their risk of allergies (another factor that’s been worsened by climate change) in a digestible interactive that breaks down potential risks into three categories: “weed,” “tree,” and “grass.” By clicking into each of these sections, users can discover which potential allergens are in and out of season.
In the future, Park imagines that Yahoo’s weather app will begin to foster more community with what he calls “the weather geek in everybody.” That might look like allowing users to upload their own photos and videos of local weather conditions, or creating an in-app chat feature for folks to discuss weather happenings in a dedicated space.
“Weather is important to Yahoo because it is a really healthy habit, and we believe we can win because we’re making weather more visual, more social, more fun,” Park says. “For us, success looks like building a weather app that’s so helpful and joyful that you’re going to tell your friends and family about it.”