Storm in a teacup or dark clouds: why do people hate the BoM website redesign? | Australia weather

The Bureau of Meteorology has been instructed to make changes to its new website after facing criticism from farmers and politicians for missing or hard-to-find features on the new-look site.

A ticking bomb or a storm in a teacup?

When Facebook changed its news feed over the years, it was faced with complaints, campaigns and petitions from users to bring back the old design.

Occasionally, Facebook bounces back and users adapt or move on.

Many organizations, including the ABC recently, weathered criticism of their website redesign before people got used to it.

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It’s been more than a year since ABC’s website was updated, and ABC remains the most visited news site in the country.

It’s not fair to compare a critical service like weather reporting to news or social media, but the BoM will likely be hoping its fate will be the same after launching its new website a week ago amid a flurry of online and political outrage.

One ABC viewer who complained about the new site said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

However, BoM argued that this was overturned.

The old website, which was last updated when Kevin Rudd was first prime minister, is a “beloved” site, according to BoM officials.

But there’s a reason the agency has been working to develop the new site since 2019 at a cost of $4.1 million.

The upgrade was necessary after a “serious cyber attack” on the BoM’s site in 2015 exposed a number of vulnerabilities in BoM systems.

BoM said the new site was built from scratch and improved to meet modern expectations such as accessibility and mobile-friendliness.

The new site had been in beta testing for 16 months and users could access the website themselves if they knew where to find it.

Feedback received through this process was fed into the site ahead of the official launch, BoM said.

National competition leader David Littleproud suggested farmers should be consulted at this stage. The National Farmers Federation declined to comment when asked about this issue.

Some of the criticism is that the agency does not randomly test people who visit the site.

This would likely lead to more complaints about a confusing experience for people just trying to find out the weather.

The other complaint appears to be about the timing of the launch, when there were severe weather conditions in parts of south-east Australia.

Timing any launch could be difficult in a country where increasingly dangerous and destructive weather systems occur amid a rapidly changing climate.

A week after launch, the BoM said it had received “a lot of feedback” on the design, which has now been tabled in federal parliament and by the Queensland premier.

Littleproud said a big problem for locals was not being able to enter GPS coordinates for their properties, with searches limited to towns or postcodes.

One resident also complained about not being able to see heavy rain levels measured at his property’s location, describing it as “very complicated and very stressful.”

The BoM was asked about the concerns raised by Littleproud, but the bureau did not respond at the time of publication.

In a statement published on Wednesday, BoM acting director-general Dr Peter Stone apologized for problems with the site and said of the radar on the new site that it “provides a view of the current weather situation”.

“It is not intended to copy or replace the bureau’s weather alerts, which are created by our expert meteorologists and issued in advance of a severe weather event,” he said.

The agency underlined that it had been in this position before. BoM’s weather app experienced a drop in user satisfaction when it was relaunched in 2020, but has since returned to previous levels.

Nevertheless, federal environment minister Murray Watt ordered changes to be made.

For now, users who are unhappy with the change can still access the old site. moved here. The old site has some features that are not yet available in the new site, and BoM said these will be transitioned while the old site is available.

Until then, BoM welcomes feedback. Stone said the BoM will act quickly and there will be more developments in the coming weeks.

With 2.6 billion visits to BoM’s site each year, there’s likely to be a lot of feedback.