Delivering personalised BBC weather forecasts to millions.
The client
BBC Online is the brand name for the BBC’s UK online service, covering its large network of websites including News and Sport, on-demand video, and radio and online learning services. They develop these services in order to support the BBC’s vision to be the most creative organisation in the world, and their mission to enrich people’s lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.
The challenge
Committed to remaining at the forefront of online innovation, the BBC undertook a review of their homepage with the intention of increasing site reach and exposing more users to the full breadth of BBC content.
Part of the core content for this page was a bespoke integrated weather module, built by Box UK, to show users a relevant forecast for their location.
Our solution
Box UK’s bespoke development team built an integral service that communicated with the BBC’s regularly updated existing weather feed in order to display the correct weather icon, along with maximum and minimum temperatures, for the coming three days. The user is shown a relevant location based on data provided by them if available; if not their GeoIP is queried and the major or capital city for their location displayed.
To effectively co-ordinate a number of disparate teams, development was run through a scrum framework. Scrum’s short development cycles allowed for regular communication and feedback, as well as rigorous peer code reviews and live, working demos daily.
Built on the corporation’s development platform Forge, the bespoke service was successfully integrated into the homepage following comprehensive software testing by both Box UK and the BBC.
The outcome
The required weather module was delivered 2 weeks ahead of schedule delivering up-to-date, location-based information to millions of BBC homepage users.
Integration with the rest of the now modular homepage was seamless with no negative impact on performance, stability or security. With localisation support built-in, the BBC’s new weather service has also been future-proofed, providing the opportunity to extend the service using multiple languages for an increasingly personal experience.
Key services
