A brief insight. If you want to learn more, request the password and download my thesis here:

Brief Summary

The method of communicating the weather has a major flaw - the message. It consists of a multitude of numbers and values, often accompanied by a symbolic graphical element for the weather type. This translation of weather phenomena is incomprehensible to humans. Us users as human beings do not perceive the weather and its phenomena in numerical values, and we would not communicate our impression of weather in that way. Therefore, this method of communication is not ideal for humans.

The research in the thesis involved analyzing existing weather communication approaches, investigating human perception and phenomenology, and experimenting with prototypes to find possible solutions.

In an approach to design weather communication for the user as a human being, four prototypes were created, attempting to make it more accessible and relevant. In general, the idea is not to fully replace the current method, but to add value to it. Therefore, part of the solution approach involves using user data and technology such as wearables to give the user a personalized, pre-evaluated weather forecast, providing meaningful insight.

Human-Centered Approach

In order to design the communication of weather to be truly understood by humans, the interface between weather phenomena and the human was researched. Three major problems were found:
The first significant finding was that humans do not perceive numbers, nor would express their perception of weather in numbers. The second major insight during the research was, that the plethora of numbers (temperature, humidity, wind strength and direction, air pressure) in the weather forecast ask for a complex calculation to evaluate the outcome for the individual, which is simply not possible to do by the majority of users. The third and last finding was that the graphics accompanying the forecast are symbolic and communicate a weather type rather than representing the actual image of the weather, which potentially lead to misunderstandings.

Therefore, the method of the current weather communication was found to be not ideal nor with the user as a human in mind. The aim of the thesis was to create a communication approach with the human in focus.

History

Our current model of communicating weather is rooted deep in cultural conventions. In order to get a more unbiased view of how humans perceive and choose to communicate the weather, a look at ancient cultures, such as ancient Egyptians in their hieroglyphs or Native American symbols was taken. The finding here was that they faced the same hurdles of depicting weather as we do today. In their approach to communicating the phenomena, it can be seen that not much has changed until today.