Designing a locally-relevant integrated regional weather information portal

The Hong Kong Observatory partnered with MAKE to ensure their regional weather information portal was fit for purpose following some unfavourable feedback. 

Hong Kong Observatory wanted MAKE to test the portals viability and use to ensure it was fit for purpose, By gaining a greater understanding of its users and their needs when interacting with it. Gaining insight into these needs would enable the Observatory to address any gaps and  focus their internal teams on the longer-term success of the portal.

By spending some time interacting with the portal itself, as well as key stakeholders and regular Hong Kongers, we developed an approach that put users at the centre of the portal’s future development.

Our team dove into extensive internal and external stakeholder design research where over 20 stakeholder interviews took place as part of a citizen x government co design workshop.

Following this, we co-created ideas and concepts which were then developed into prototypes and tested against the current portals to ensure a high level of user-centricity in the redesigned portal.

Our team of MAKErs employed a range of Design Thinking tools to create a tailored solution for The Hong Kong Observatory, including internal and external stakeholder design research, co design workshops and synthesis to sense-make and  balance perspectives on the platforms, ultimately informing the portal’s design.

Our research and co-design session outcomes were transformed into a new design for the portal. The new features, layout and logic of the redesigned regional weather hub were designed based on the needs of different segments of the Observatory’s target audience, and tested by them to ensure the result was fit for purpose.

The  interactive prototype designed by our MAKErs gained 100% validation by customers,  who were able to find, use, and act on information in the redesigned weather portal.

2 years after the project completed, the Hong Kong Observatory invited the design team to the Observatory to review the soon to be implemented new portal.