CP24 Weather Tab

The Challenge
Following the redesign of the BNN Bloomberg app as part of Bell Media’s broader news experience evolution, the product team prioritized improving CP24’s mobile experience next.

Weather reporting is one of CP24’s highest-traffic use cases, so the weather tab became an early focus for modernization.
Starting Point & Alignment

I began by meeting with product team to clarify goals, scope, and success measures.

The mandate was simple: make it easier for users to check local weather conditions and switch between cities without friction.

Once requirements and user stories were confirmed, I moved into discovery and validation work to understand the current experience and user expectations.

Usability Evaluation

To ground decisions in user behaviour, I ran unmoderated usability tests on AccuWeather and The Weather Network with Canadian users who check weather daily or weekly on their phone.

Participants completed core tasks such as switching cities, checking current conditions, and scanning hourly forecasts.

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Patterns That Worked Well:

  • Clear Weather Information: Users appreciated when current conditions, temperature, and forecasts were front and center.
  • Extended Forecasts: Hourly and 7-day forecasts were crucial for planning.
  • Dynamic Backgrounds: AccuWeather and The Weather Network’s interactive visuals enhanced the experience.

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Friction Observed:

  • Poor Information Hierarchy: Important details like wind, humidity, and hourly forecasts were buried or hard to find.

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Recommendations:

  • Optimize for Clarity: Users wanted hourly details, wind, and humidity at a glance.
  • Streamline City Switching: Implement clear location controls and potentially a swiping feature
  • Additional Features: Consider incorporating valued information like air quality and allergy allergies.

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I presented these insights directly with product leadership, engineering, and mobile development teams  to align on feasibility and sequencing.

This ensured we prioritized the right improvements before moving into wireframes.

Optimizing for Simplicity

With clear usability findings in hand, I moved into wireframing and iteration.

One of the biggest pain points users experienced was switching cities. They expected a fast, natural way to jump between locations, yet the existing flow required several steps and navigation paths.

To solve this, I redesigned city switching around gesture-based navigation and streamlined search.

Users could now simply swipe left or right to switch cities, or quickly add and reorder locations based on personal preference.

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Key Interaction Improvements:
  • Swipe gestures for effortless city switching.
  • Enhancing search functionality with predictive results and recently searched cities.
  • Allowing users to favourite and reorder locations for a more personalized experience.
Design Refinements

With user research and feedback as inputs, I redesigned key screens to prioritize clarity and speed.

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Optimized Information Hierarchy:
  • Prioritized hourly forecasts, wind, and humidity at the top.
  • Reduced visual clutter for a streamlined, more readable layout.

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Enhanced Navigation & City Switching:
  • Implemented clear location controls for better visibility.
  • Introduced swipe gestures for effortless city-switching.
  • Added recent and favorite cities for quicker access.

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Extending Impact Across Bell Media Products:
  • Research and usability testing from CP24 informed the design of CTV News’ local experience.
  • Shared patterns for city switching and weather details created consistency across both products.
  • Reusing validated components reduced design and development time while keeping the experience familiar for users.
Benchmarking & Usability Testing

Once the new Weather tab went live, I ran internal benchmarking tests to validate improvements.

I compared the old and new experiences using completion rates, time-on-task, System Usability Scale (SUS) scores, and reported pain points.

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Old CP24 Weather Tab:

Users struggled to complete core tasks efficiently. Switching cities and scanning forecasts required multiple steps, leading to hesitation and repeated errors.

  • SUS Score: 59.50 (Indicating usability challenges)
  • Avg. Time on Task: 35 seconds
  • Avg. Errors: 1.8
  • Pain Points: Too many steps confused users when toggling between cities.
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New CP24 Weather Tab:

The redesigned experience reduced cognitive load, simplified city switching, and elevated key weather details. Testing showed faster completion and zero reported confusion.

  • SUS Score: 92.50 (Significant usability improvement)
  • Avg. Time on Task: 25 seconds
  • Avg. Errors: 0
  • Pain Points: None reported
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Reflections

This project reinforced that improvements to core flows can have outsized impact.

By simplifying city switching and making key weather details instantly scannable, we made the daily weather check feel effortless.