Vacation Planner
This product represented a major paradigm shift for weather.com and its users. Normally, a traveler would visit weather.com days before departing on their journey. I wanted to 1) reverse that thinking and make weather.com more of a long-range planning tool for vacationers, and 2) reach travelers who didn't know where they wanted to go and, more importantly, had not purchased their tickets, thereby making it more attractive to advertisers.- Mapped over 400 vacation destinations throughout the world to detailed weather forecasts and current conditions.
- Created a proprietary Sightseeing Index designed to describe local sightseeing conditions to users.
- Employed a more traditional travel magazine style approach with bolder colors and multiple search options.
- Assembled an unparalleled database of climatological data (local almanac) used on a commercial site.
- Licensed destination content, featuring "where to go" and "what to do" information, that covered all 50 states, over 100 countries and almost 200 international cities.
Interstate Forecast
No weather site, including weather.com, had a strong national driving weather product that cleverly illustrated weather along major interstates. Therefore, I set out to create a product designed for roadtrippers and long-range commuters. Since Spring was coming and an ad commitment was already made before launch, I had this product concepted, documented, focus-tested and live-to-site in four weeks.- Includes weather forecasts for cities along 59 major U.S. interstates.
- Designed regional and national maps with color-coded weather along interstates.
- Created a proprietary driving index that is illustrated graphically on all maps, ranging from 'Good' (green-clear, light winds) to 'Caution' (red-icy, wintry mix).
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Golf
Launched with the redesign of weather.com in February 2000, this product represents the first large-scale relationship of weather content with "lifestyle" content launched on weather.com.- Includes current conditions, forecasts, Golf Index, and course profile information for 17,000 U.S. golf courses.
- All courses are geographically mapped to allow users to find conditions by proximity to a specific zip code or city name.
- Created a proprietary Golf Index designed to describe optimum golfing conditions to users using a number range between 0-10.
Airport Impact Forecast Maps
Easing travelers' woes is a number one goal at weather.com. Therefore, I launched these Airport Impact maps which graphically illustrate weather at major airports throughout the U.S.- These maps can also be found on several other Weather Channel platforms including the cable channel and their e-mail and desktop products.
- Morning, midday and evening maps were created.
Holiday Planner
I co-developed this product while developing the U.S. site's Vacation Planner.- Efficiently streamlined resources to create two products out of one.
- Provided a good alignment of products across Weather Channel brands.
- Significantly opened up new possible revenue streams for weather.co.uk.
Motorway Forecast
This one came along as I was working on the Interstate Forecast product for the U.S. site. Weather.co.uk needed stronger travel content to reach European advertisers, so I co-developed this product with them once the U.S. version was launched.- All of Great Britain's major motorways are represented.
- Provided a good alignment of products across Weather Channel brands.
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