Temp°

Temp° began at IBM as a simple idea to combine music and weather in order to get people excited about an app called Weather Underground. Temp° uses the Weather Underground API to create music out of data from a 10-day live forecast of specific areas around the world by assigning a music beat to 5 different elements within the data.

Temp° was designed and delivered in one week by the IBM Maelstrom internship cohort which consisted of 11 interns ranging in Design Research, UX, UI, and Front-end Development. I focused on UX and assisted in UI. I also worked closely with IBM project stakeholders to ensure the project stayed within the visual guidelines of IBM’s SXSW Exhibit.

Our team began the process with creating Stuart to frame our end product. We created a persona map to document what Stuart is thinking, feeling, saying, and doing.

We synced five parameters in current weather data (dew point, temperature, location, humidity, and wind speed) with customized musical beats for five geographical locations. As the weather parameters evolve over the day, the volume levels of their respective audio tracks will rise and fall, changing the music over time.

In order to showcase Weather Underground’s personal weather stations very location specific data, we show three areas around the SXSW location in Austin. We added Antarctica to show some of the harshest cold conditions and Tokyo because it was relatable to a high volume of SXSW visitors.

Imagine waking up to custom music allowing you to discover what the weather will be like that day. On your drive home from work, listen to the melodies of weather. By adding elements like elevation and speed into the mix, you can discover what music sounds like at 30,000 feet up in the sky on your flight.