The Problem

Minnesota-based DTN has a number of legacy weather products that still generate millions in revenue every year, but are at risk from increased competition and legacy foundations.

Our team needed to build a modern platform that could scale to meet current and future needs, while consolidating and improving features from existing products.

The Solution

Built from the ground up, DTN Weather Hub is a platform for the next era of weather intelligence.

Whether it’s managing energy grids or ensuring safety at large-scale events, DTN Weather Hub is built in a modular way to support a diverse range of customers with unique needs.

My Role

I was a Senior UX Designer at DTN and the lead designer of Weather Hub from its inception in 2024 to its launch in 2026.

The Dashboard

The home of Weather Hub is the Dashboard.

Looking at existing DTN weather products there were a number of pain-points when it came to Dashboards.

DTN WeatherSentry includes a pre-built Dashboard with widgets in static locations and sizes.

Weatherzone Business, a product acquired by DTN, required sales-team intervention to customise its Dashboard, but featured widgets similar to ones recreated for Weather Hub.

Both products were built on an aging stack and weren't designed responsively.

But it's also important to note that customers know and love these products and use them every day. There was a real need to appeal to existing customers and potential new customers with Weather Hub's Dashboard system.

The new Weather Hub Dashboard allows users to build fully custom dashboards to meet their needs, with modular widgets that can be configured individually.

Dashboards can be viewed on any screen size, including tablet and mobile. A native mobile app also features most of the desktop Weather Hub capabilities.

This flexible system empowers users to tailor dashboards precisely to their workflows and decision-making needs.

To help new users get started quickly, Weather Hub also includes a dashboard template system with pre-configured templates created by DTN and with the ability for users to create their own templates.

The Dashboard experience was iteratively validated through ongoing user interviews and Maze concept testing. In parallel, feedback from early-access users was collected, synthesised, and translated into actionable design improvements.

Vercel's generative design tool v0 allowed us to also create working prototypes to show to users, without engineering work. As well as lists of customers who are open to user testing, Maze links can be shared with users directly in the Weather Hub product.

The insights from user testing and discussions drove several key updates, including a complete redesign of dashboard management features through inline, editable tabs, and improvements to a Dashboard templates system. This reduced friction and improved discoverability, as well as improving the experience for users migrating from existing products.

To further refine the experience, onboarding flows were mapped and analysed using Userflow

Microsoft Clarity provided behavioural analytics and session recordings to uncover usability issues and real-world usage patterns.

Widgets were designed for mobile and desktop from the outset. While maintaining consistency across devices, mobile-specific adaptations were introduced where needed to optimise usability on mobile web and native apps.

Users can also customise widgets independently on desktop and mobile, ensuring relevance in different contexts.

A Dashboard sharing feature means an administrator can create and maintain a living Dashboard with colleagues. A Google Docs-style permissions system means these Dashboards can be customised in collaboration with colleagues, which can be essential when coordinating through a fast-moving weather event.

As a tool that comes with users in the field, the native Weather Hub mobile app places the Map front and centre on launch, with glanceability and relevant widgets shown before the fold. Relevant widgets reflect your current location, but users can also view widgets for specific locations too.

By scrolling up, a customisable Dashboard is available, with widgets that reflect desktop-level data.

The mobile app is essential for giving users quick access to alerts and insights on the go. Previous DTN products often had companion-style apps with very stripped-back feature sets, while DTN Weather Hub is designed as a mobile-first option.

A Powerful GIS Mapping Platform

Weather Hub builds on DTN’s long-standing expertise in advanced mapping solutions, delivering a robust, GIS mapping experience integrated directly into the platform.

Premium map layers are displayed, with real-time and forecast weather data, all projected onto a Mapbox globe. This helps to provide spatial clarity and depth for users.

Existing DTN map solutions are quite popular, so this was an area where not as many changes were initially required.

Based on user feedback we did introduce a Presets feature to allow for quick changes to multiple Map layers at once. And more work is now in progress to further simplify Maps onboarding and workflows.

A challenge with the diverse customer-base of Weather Hub is that some users really do want these complex, customisable interfaces. While others in our testing benefit from a more streamlined setup process, many users need a powerful map tool. Designing for these differing personas was a constant challenge in this initial version of Weather Hub.

The Weather Hub mobile app extends this experience to users in the field, offering the same core map functionality without compromise. This ensures users can access critical weather insights wherever they are, supporting time-sensitive decision-making on the go.

Users can create and manage layer presets to quickly toggle relevant combinations of map layers, streamlining workflows and reducing cognitive load. Presets on Desktop are available on Mobile. Bulk enable and disable controls further improve efficiency when working with complex datasets.

On desktop, to help maintain focus on the map itself, the Layers panel intelligently collapses while panning, displaying only active layers and maximising screen real estate for exploration and analysis.

Selecting a location on the map reveals contextual weather data, active alerts, and relevant dashboard widgets, allowing users to move seamlessly between high-level spatial awareness and detailed, location-specific insights.

Alerts Management

Alerts management in Weather Hub is all about efficiency. Users can quickly create alerts that trigger based on certain thresholds and alert team members - via email, SMS, or push notification.

Alert templates can be updated in bulk when required through a template system.

All alerts in Weather Hub are created with an inline-editor that allows for quick spreadsheet-like tweaks.

A template system also allows users to edit many alerts at once.

Through precise location access, push notifications can alert users on mobile devices of nearby warnings and alerts.