Massachusetts (the Bay State) is home. I grew up here, and after a number of years living in other places, I am back in the Boston area. I have fond memories of going to the beach as a child, and have always loved boats and lighthouses. As a young adult I joined Community Boating on the Charles River in Boston. I loved sailing those small boats up and down the Charles, with the Boston skyline on one side and Cambridge on the other.

Several years ago my dad bought a 22 foot C-Dory and it has become a family activity to go out on the water during the summers. My teen son has definitely caught the boating bug and plans to take a boating certification course.

C-Dory

Jay Lawlor boating off the Massachusetts coast.

This is all a way of saying that I was naturally drawn to the boating weather app project in my CareerFoundry UX Immersion course. It is going to be both instructional and a lot of fun to work on a user experience design for a boating weather app.

I have named my boating weather app Ahoy! The design objective (based on the project brief) is a responsive web app to provide beautifully displayed and easy to understand wind, wave and weather reports, forecasts, and statistics for pleasure boaters.

Ahoy Boating App Logo – UX Design by Jay Lawlor

A main feature (based on initial research) is a personalized weather conditions rating system. The rating system will let boaters know within moments if current weather conditions and daily forecasts fit within their defined paramaters for a safe and pleasurable day on the water.

Following are some excerpts from my  CareerFoundry UX Design course tasks where I discuss different aspects of the Ahoy! design thinking up to this point.

UX Design Thinking for Ahoy! app

Problem Statement

Users of Ahoy! need a way to easily read and understand coastal weather reports and forecasts because safety is the number one priority for a fun day on the water.

We will know this to be true when we see users of Ahoy! getting useful weather reports and forecasts with easy-to-understand weather conditions and the level of safety for pleasure boating.

Best Solution

Ahoy! Provides recreational boaters with official coastal weather reports and forecasts in easy-to-understand maps, neatly formatted text with user-friendly fonts, and a clear boating safety rating system. Users of Ahoy! can quickly look up coastal weather reports and forecasts and know within minutes what it’s like out on the water and the level of safety for recreational boating.

I’m excited to see where the design process takes me as I work through the project. Ahoy!