Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command
Improving user access to critical weather information
The public facing website of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NMOC) displays weather data from around the world. The mission of the NMOC is “to provide critical information from the ocean depths to the most distant reaches of space, meeting needs in the military, scientific, and civilian communities.” NMOC hosts a large amount of content on the site, but it hasn’t been organized in an effective way. There are several sub-sites each with different product owners, which has led to inconsistencies in presentation and organization of information.
This project aimed to enhance the discoverability and accessibility of information by first performing an in-depth analysis and content inventory of the current site, performing a card sort activity, creating an updated site map, and present findings and recommendations in a comprehensive final design.
Project Goals
The goals of this project included (1) Increasing the number of product categories visited by users, (2) Creating a site structure that makes users aware of NMOC’s mission to provide “critical information from the ocean depths to the most distant reaches of space, meeting needs in the military, scientific, and civilian communities,” (3) independence for researchers, allowing them to access a larger set of historical data, and providing specific downloads and resources tailored towards researchers, and (4) address any user related goals identified during research.
Weather Analysts, Researchers, and Hobbyists
The platform caters to a diverse range of users with distinct needs. These examples illustrate the various tasks users might undertake.
Researcher: A researcher might conduct in-depth investigations into niche topics, delving into specialized data sources and occasionally filing FOIA requests to access weather data not publicly available on the site, involving the download of various files crucial for their research.
Hobbyist: A hobbyist may seek real-time information, aiming to locate the latest tsunami warnings, high-wind advisories for Helsinki in the Baltic Sea, and the sunset time for Sasebo, Japan. They might perform tasks like sourcing recent tsunami alerts, locating wind warnings, and finding sunset times.
Weather Analyst: A weather analyst may focus on professional weather reports for the Arabian Sea, Arabian Gulf, and Red Sea, with a mission to access KQSI station observations and download associated .metar files while also obtaining the latest forecaster handbook updates.
Current Site Experience
No standardized design or experience: Several sub-sites and confusing navigation.
As a windsurfing enthusiast living in Helsinki, Finland, the hobbyist uses the website to stay informed about high-wind warnings on the Baltic Sea. The site provides detailed and accurate weather data that the hobbyist can use to plan their windsurfing trips and ensure their safety on the water. Overall, the hobbyist finds the website to be an invaluable resource for their outdoor activities.
The Hobbyist Experience
"I live in Helsinki, Finland. My favorite pastime is windsurfing on the Baltic Sea. Before I decide to go out on the sea, I always check for high-wind warnings. As a wind-surfer, high wind warnings can be just as exciting as they are scary! It is a critical piece of information for me to know about".
Goal: Find high-wind warnings for Helsinki, Finland (Baltic Sea)
The hobbyist is likely to encounter problems while using the current site, turning a simple task like finding high wind warnings into a needlessly complicated endeavor. The use of acronyms in primary navigation and the absence of weather-related links on the homepage create unnecessary barriers, making it difficult for users who should easily access this information.
Updated Site Experience
The updated site experience meets both the goals of the users and the business. Users are able to find the information they need through a weather-centric organization and are also able to discover new information that they might not have known existed.
Navigation
The objective of the navigational links is to provide easy access to the wide range of offerings available on the site. The messaging used for the links is based on common weather-related terms that users are likely to be familiar with. By selecting a primary, secondary, or tertiary link, users can quickly navigate to the relevant page on the site. Additionally, a user can take action from the utility navigation bar, access external links, or use the search function. Overall, the navigational links on this site are designed to make it easy for users to find the information they need.
Homepage
The objective of the homepage is to provide an overview of the offerings of NMOC and to provide information and direct access to important sections of the website.
Homepage Sections
The homepage is divided into five major sections, each designed to address a specific user goal and aid in discovery. Each section provides information and links to relevant pages, allowing users to easily find the information they need and to navigate to different parts of the site.
Explore the Weather: The three main weather-centric categories, sorted by order of importance.
Storm Watch: Information regarding ongoing storms is displayed with statuses and direct links to details.
Worldwide Offerings: Provides links to various oceanographic, geographic, and space offerings. The buttons are displayed in the layout of a world map to give the user a familiar layout.
Resources for Researchers: Allows for discovery of direct links to specific data sets.
About: Allows users to learn about the commands contributing data to the website.
Weather Landing Page
The objective of the weather landing page is to display all weather "products" in a frame and provide options for filtering the products. This allows users to easily find the information they are looking for and to interact with the weather products. Users can interact with the weather products by sharing them, expanding them, or opening them in a new tab.
Updated Site Map
A new site map was created using the results of the card sort activity and findings from additional analysis as a guide. The new site map is clearly simplified compared to its predecessor by first using primary level categories that would match the users mental model. Users will be able to use the primary site structure to more easily navigate to their desired page.
UI Styles
A consistent visual style was developed for the website by creating design guidelines that defined the colors, fonts, and other visual elements used on the site. This ensured that the site has a cohesive, professional appearance that is consistent across all pages.
Goals Addressed
The redesigned website successfully achieved the project goals of increasing the number of product categories visited by users, creating a site structure that makes users aware of NMOC’s mission, providing independence for researchers to access a larger set of historical data, and addressing user related goals identified during research.
An improved browsing experience allows users to scroll through many different products on a single page. On general information pages, users are provided with related, recent, and popular links at the bottom of the page. This allows them to easily access other pages, likely increasing page viewership.
The homepage and primary levels help the user understand the breadth of the site offerings – something which was not done on the existing site. Critical information is conveyed by the ”Alerts” in the utility navigation, which displays a red badge with the number of alerts. There is a hyperlink map on the homepage that clearly shows the website has offerings spanning oceanographic, geographic, and space locations.
Researchers now have access to a larger set of historical data that includes specific downloads and resources tailored towards them. There is a link in the utility navigation ”Data for Researchers” which would take users to a specific page to download data. There is a section on the homepage that tells the user “All the data they want is here” and provides graphical links to various types of data.
Reflection
The redesigned information architecture meets both the goals of the users and the business. Users are able to find the information they need through a weather-centric organization and are also able to discover new information that they might not have known existed. The business has a design that organizes existing information and is ready for any future growth. These improvements create a site that will be reliable and trusted by the user community and position the business as a leader in delivering this type of content.
detailed Research Findings
Content Analysis and Open Card Sort
A thorough content analysis of the current website was performed. This involved documenting every page of the website and the content that it contained. In order to prepare for a redesigned sitemap and the card sort activity, a simplified name was given to each page within the website. This was important as many pages had very cryptic names that could never be understood without appropriate context.
An open card sort was used with 51 cards total. Respondents were instructed to organize the cards into groups that they thought made sense to them. Participants were recruited from the United States who had a college level education. There were 14 respondents to the card sort. Four respondents had to be excluded from the results as they likely had false responses (completing the card sort in just a few minutes). The card sort results were analyzed using the tools built in analysis features. The similarity matrix, dendograms, and participant-centric analysis were all used to create the new site map.
The card sort significantly contributed to the development of a new navigational structure and categories. The findings highlighted the clear prominence of the "Storms" category in the card sort, leading to its integration at the primary level and the introduction of dedicated "Alerts" in the utility navigation. In addition, distinct categories such as typhoon, tsunami, forecasts, reports, newsletters, support, and cyclone were established. Dendrograms helped illustrate the consensus among participants within the new groupings, ultimately aiding in the formulation of a new site map.
Information Architecture Analysis
Overall Site Structure: Based upon the website’s user groups, they all want to find specific data related to some type of weather event. The current site does not support this mental model. When they first land on the website, they are presented with links to each product, and nothing specific to weather, which is the most important part of the website. The products are also labeled with acronyms, which makes it difficult for an inexperienced user to know which product to go into. If the structure was organized in a way that made sense to a typical user, the user would first be presented with options that that make them aware of the site offerings, and that would direct them to the appropriate place to find what they need.
Content Grouping: Content is not logically grouped. Each product category of the site has content that is essentially duplicated or can be combined into the other product category with related items. Some products, such as the NOAC-Y (a Japan weather page) only has two main content areas. These content areas would likely be more useful if they were structured somewhere else with other pages that are related to Japan.
Eliminating Categories: The entire primary level could potentially be eliminated. The primary level just lists the products offered on the site. Within the products, it is possible to have information that is relevant to another product as well. Eliminating the primary level and implementing a new structure would allow related pages and content to be intertwined at a higher level and aid discover-ability.
Missing Categories: To align the website to its mission and user base, it is suggested at a minimum to introduce two categories relating to weather (Space, and Ocean), and three categories relating to user populations (Military, Scientific, and Civilian). Once further analysis of the site structure is performed, additional categories might be added that relate to specific locations or user groups.
Page Navigation Analysis
Finding Specific Content: It is difficult to navigate to specific content. For example, a user may want to find a specific weather item that is located in some geographic area. If they could first search by that geographical area, they would arrive much quicker at their desired data. Instead, they have to find the correct product, and then navigate a different type of page, still with no geographical information. For the most part, users should know where they are. They are provided with headers that aim to give information about their location. However, these are not consistently used in the same location, and sometimes show both the main header and the product header.
Error Prone Visual Cues: The primary navigation on the homepage uses a vertical list of hyperlinks similarly to links that are displayed on the JWTC product page. An issue that arises on the JWTC page with the hyperlinks is that they are a list of Typhoon updates, and not part of the navigational structure. After visiting the homepage, users may choose to ignore the links on the JWTC thinking they are navigation links, and not realize they are Typhoon updates. This issue could cause serious issues.
Back-Navigation: Users are not always able to get back to the previous page. Because each product uses its own design and structure, some pages do not include a “Home” or “Back” button. One of the product pages FWC-N includes a “Back in History” button, which takes the user to the previous page they visited within the product only, which could be useful. The FWC-N is one of the products that does not have a button to return to the home page.
Expectation Setting: There is a mix of good and bad expectation setting for labels on this website. Many labels provide a decent explanation for what is behind them, such as the “Outlooks” or “Forecasts” links on the FWC-N page. These labels set clear expectations for what a user will find behind them. Some labels provide no explanation to set an expectation for a user, such as every link in the primary navigation, and many of the acronym links. One link labeled “Optimum Ship Track Routing” opens a page of weather advisories. These advisories may aid in track routing, but the label does not set an expectation of what will be found on the page, which would also likely reduce the number of visitors to the page.
Search: The site does not currently have a search. A powerful global search that is logically placed would greatly enhance the usefulness of this website. It would also give users a second method to explore the site, which is recommended for accessibility purposes, and would allow for greater discover-ability.
Filter and Sort: There is a very large inventory of items on the site, but unfortunately no sorting or filtering is provided. Filtering and sorting options are desperately needed on the site to allow for easy discovery and analysis of content.
Page Layout Analysis
Labeling: A large majority of page content, across all of the products is difficult to understand without fully reading the entire section. This is especially true with the text-based reports that are provided. This is not because the content is “poor.” The reason why a large amount of the content is difficult to understand is because it has little organizational structure and contains subject matter that might not have been intended for a general population.
Organization: The homepage is one that offers most content above the fold. There are some pages that have no identifiable logical organization. These pages with poor organization typically have large charts with built in labels, or large amounts of text that is near impossible to decipher.
Separation: In some places there are big heading labels that separate sections, and sometimes color lines that separate sections. Some sections are not clearly defined, and this can create confusion.