I don’t like it, it’s another exercise in taking a functional website and ‘modernising’ it by making it look like a mobile app (i.e. the make it look attractive to kindergarten kids school of design).

For my own use cases it’s made it more annoying to get to the 7 day Canberra forecast, made the local radar harder to see, and I’m not noticing a link to the written ACT region forecast which I will want to look at in winter.

  • Ilandar@lemmy.todayEnglish
    142·
    20 hours ago

    Are you guys all boomers or something? The old website was absolutely terrible and well overdue for an upgrade. It desperately needed a version that scaled well and was accessible for mobile users, since that is how we access the internet in 2025 (inb4 irrelevant anecdote about yourself). The only bad thing about the new one is that they’re still insisting on this cringe “The Bureau” branding.

    • Seagoon_@aussie.zoneEnglish
      4·
      18 hours ago

      was accessible for mobile users, since that is how we access the internet

      We? Who is we? You don’t speak for everyone and it seems to be an over generalisation.

      got some facts for that ( I’m a gen xer )

      It’s stupid logical fallacies and talk like that that lead people to vote for arseholes.

      But anyway tell me about that internet thing you young whippersnapper? ;) I’ve only been using it since 1982

    • No1@aussie.zoneEnglish
      4·
      19 hours ago

      I’m not sure if I should be furious or laughing my ass off.

      Well played.

  • cdzero@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    17 hours ago

    My first impression is not liking it. But I haven’t dug into it much. I did like the old one. The design of Hong Kong’s is more to my taste. My criticism is purely visual at this point.

  • zen@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    20 hours ago

    Tried to submit feedback telling them that their feedback button covers the rain radar map controls on iPhone, only to have recaptcha prevent me from submitting the feedback, even after successfully completing it.

    So I guess that sums up my thoughts so far. Do they seriously not have anyone test the site on a phone before they push it?

  • SteveTech@aussie.zoneEnglish
    6·
    1 day ago

    Probably an unpopular opinion, but I don’t actually mind it. There’s now a bunch of layers that are selectable on the radar page itself, which were either nonexistent or hard to find on the old site. There’s an easy to understand hourly forecast, instead of the text only one (which is still there), and I had no problem finding the 7 day forecast. Also there’s finally HTTPS by default!

    Of course if you don’t like it, this still seems to work for the old website: https://reg.bom.gov.au/

  • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    Yeah, I liked having a bookmark of the nearest radar - I could immediately bring it up with one click and see what’s happening. The new system with the pannable map, you just have a view of the whole country, and must zoom into where you actually are to see what’s happening.

    The weather predictions layout is… fine, but the old one definitely felt more like you had all the info you needed right there where this one you have to click 7-Day Forecast and then expand Tomorrow to see more detail.

  • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Sigh, time to rewrite my scraper so I can have just the facts in my top panel again. Last one got like 5 years I think, hopefully they’re not going to up the pace…

  • Emily (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    41·
    1 day ago

    I personally like it. I wish it were a little more compact, but it seems to be nearly feature parable with the old one and looks a little more up to date. This seems to be a step up in accessibility, both in terms of screen reader compatibility and behaving more in line with what an average user would expect. They’ve apparently even gone the extra mile to ensure existing bookmarks keep working.

    Having been behind a couple of these modernization efforts, no one ever likes them. People complain every time but the user testing doesn’t lie. Unfortunately redesigns are necessary as technology and user expectations change and considering the fact that the old website didn’t play well on mobile and was well over 10 years old (15 if you’re counting from the last major redesign) I’d say this one was pretty due. The fact this redesign even kept nearly every feature and option (as far as I can tell), rolled out fairly smoothly, and hasn’t gone too overboard with minimalism/lack of character, I’m willing to call the redesign good.

    • Ilandar@lemmy.todayEnglish
      61·
      20 hours ago

      Having been behind a couple of these modernization efforts, no one ever likes them. People complain every time but the user testing doesn’t lie.

      The people who complain about everything complain every time. Most see the new website, think “cool” or “where did everything go?” and get on with their lives. Places like reddit and Lemmy are disproportionately filled with complainers, because most people don’t care enough to get online and moan about every little thing in life. They are actually out in the world doing and enjoying things. This is why every single live service game subreddit is full of 24/7 whining from the same people. The majority of the playerbase is happily playing the game while these people are crying on social media.

    • Seagoon_@aussie.zoneEnglish
      32·
      23 hours ago

      I’d say this one was pretty due.

      Why is it due? What was wrong with the old one?

      What does screen reader compatibility even mean? Whose screen? Mine? I use a lap top.

      Who cares what the average user expects, it’s up to the smart people to set the standard, not the other way around.

      • Emily@aussie.zoneEnglish
        3·
        18 hours ago

        What was wrong with the old one?

        1. As previously mentioned, it was not mobile friendly. Phones make up most internet traffic, so you’re actively making your website inaccessible to most people by not supporting that platform
        2. The old website was built on outdated technologies and was not HTTPS compatible
        3. It looked dated, and (as much as they shouldn’t) people will make judgements about the quality of your service based on aesthetics. If they want to compete with other weather websites, which I think they should, they need to play the part
        4. The old website had multiple usability issues (e.g. interactive target sizes, other things I list below, …)

        What does screen reader compatibility even mean? Whose screen? Mine? I use a lap top.

        Screen reader. Like for blind people. Who need the screen read out to them. Verbally. By software. Whom the government should be considering while building digital services. See previous mention about “usability issues”.

        Who cares what the average user expects, it’s up to the smart people to set the standard

        I’m glad you consider yourself among the smart people. I haven’t worked with the designers on this particular project, but like most I’ve worked with before I would assume they’re also reasonably intelligent. They’ll understand, just like I’m sure you do, that a good interface is an intuitive one. We all have mental models of how we expect software to “feel”; how it should navigate, be structured, and just behave in general. Any time you break that model, you add friction as the user has to learn how your specific app behaves. Of course, there are sometimes good reasons to do so, but I would argue that the weather, which is generally considered a basic task, is not one of them. Therefore, updating their website to match common, modern, and well reasoned design patterns to make it more accessible to new users is reasonably justified.

        That said, existing users of BoM already have a mental model of the website, and by updating it they’re breaking it. They’re essentially privileging the experience of new users and they should be careful to ensure the redesign is actually necessary. This is a trade off of all redesigns but, considering my previously mentioned issues with the old website, and their clear effort to maintain feature parity, I would argue that that is fair in this case.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    67·
    1 day ago

    Meanwhile the BOM app is far less accurate than Apple weather; often laughably so. They should focus their efforts on improving their data and modeling instead of superficial shit.