Survey Insights

We surveyed 50 users (mostly students) to uncover needs for a beginner‑friendly surf weather app.

• 50% prioritize temperature; 50% prioritize rain & wind.
• 100% want simplistic design; 90% want weekly forecasts.
• 70% seek wind speed data; 10% enjoy animations.
• 60% skateboarders; 50% surfers & basketball players.

Interviews

We sat down with eight participants (ages 18–22) and a professional meteorologist to dig deeper into how users interpret weather data. Students confirmed our survey findings—that temperature and rain intensity are critical—but stressed the need for relatable analogies (e.g., “light drizzle vs. heavy downpour”) and simple towel-reminder prompts based on real-time conditions. They also asked for clear wind-speed visualizations to plan surf sessions. Our expert interview underscored the importance of integrating wave height and wind direction overlays for surfers. These conversations directly influenced our design: we introduced a color-coded rain scale with contextual labels, dynamic towel notifications, and an interactive surf conditions graph to make decision-making effortless.

Competitor Analysis

What beginners miss in existing surf-weather apps:

• Surfline: excellent wave cams, but you must pay for live feeds.
• Magicseaweed: similar features, yet its layout and paywall overwhelm new users.
• Wisuki: strong wind data across sports, but no surf-specific visuals.
• WSL: rich competition stats, though the UI is too dense for casual surfers.

Paper Prototype

Sketeched up a simple interface that would be simple for beginner sufers to use while they are out and began, testing in our environment.

Low‑fidelity Prototype

We built a simple Figma prototype to make it more tesable and make it natural growing position so that we can make our higher fidelity prototypes

Low-fidelity User Test

We tested our low-fi prototype with 5 users to catch early issues:

• Forecast & Conditions tabs were easy to find.
• Swipe-to-refresh felt natural for most users.
• Towel-tip placement needs to be higher on the screen.

High-fidelity User Test

We tested our polished prototype with 5 users to confirm final usability:

• Visual design was well received, users found the color scheme clear.
• Bottom navigation bar still caused slight confusion—labels will be refined.
• Interactive towel-tip animation was engaging but needs faster response.
• Wave-condition graph was intuitive and helped users plan their session.

High-fidelity Prototype

We cleaned up our low-fi screens in Figma, added real colors, icons, and interactions, and made it fully clickable. This let us test the exact flow before writing any code—only one small bottom-bar tweak remains for the next round.