Studio concept

Aabhal

AI weather briefiOS appRain radarPune monsoon

A Pune weather app that writes your morning in plain words: when the rain comes, and when to leave.

Studio concept · not a client project

A studio concept: a fictional product we designed and built to show how we work. Not a client project.

Product designAI writingData visualisationMotionPrototype

One day in Kothrud: the morning brief, the storm on the radar, the evening.Phone · 9:41 AM to 7:14 PM

A forecast is a number. A morning needs a decision.

Most weather apps hand you an icon and a percentage and leave the thinking to you. In a Pune monsoon the question is never only whether it will rain. It is when the spell arrives, which road floods first, and whether you should leave the office early.

Aabhal (Marathi for the sky) answers that question in a paragraph. Ira lives in Kothrud, works in Hinjewadi and has dinner on FC Road at 7:30. At 9:41 her phone has already read the radar, her calendar and the rain gauges, and written her day: dry till lunch, a heavy spell at 4:40, leave Hinjewadi by 4:15, take the umbrella tonight.

We designed the brand, the brief, the radar and the sky, and built it as a working prototype with its own scripted demo.

What it had to do

01
Say what the weather means for your day, in a sentence a person would write.
02
Show its working: every brief names the radar, the calendar entry and the gauges it read.
03
Make the rain visible: a radar of Pune you can play through the whole day.
04
Look like the sky outside the window, hour by hour.

The brief, word by word.

The brief streams in while the radar is read, then lights up the four things you act on. Colour carries the meaning, so a glance is enough: blue is rain, amber is what to do, green is air, rose is the evening.

Aabhal BriefUpdated 9:41 AM

Dry till lunch. A heavy spell rolls in off the ghats at 4:40, so leave Hinjewadi by 4:15 or Paud Road crawls till 6. Take the umbrella to FC Road tonight. Clean air, AQI 38. Sunset 7:14 behind Sinhagad, if the clouds break.

Radar, 6 min ago7:30 PM, FC Road41 gauges

HighlightsFour colours, four jobs

RainWhen it arrives, and what to carry.
What to doThe one action that changes your day.
AirThe AQI, in a word first and a number second.
The eveningSunset, and whether the clouds will let you see it.

SourcesShown under every brief

The brief writes itself

While it reads the radar and your day, the card shimmers. Then the brief arrives a word at a time, and its sources settle underneath.

A radar drawn by hand

Pune as a person draws it: the ghats, the Mula and the Mutha, your route from Hinjewadi. Press play and the day runs from a clear morning to the 4:40 storm.

Sunset, then the weekend

As the clouds break, the sunset card warms up. Below it: the two ways home, and a plan for the ghats on Sunday.

A sky that follows the hour.

The whole app sits on the sky it describes. Seven keys carry it from the 9:41 morning, through storm slate at 4:40, to the apricot of a 7:14 sunset. Scrub the day.

Rain radar · KothrudTue 14 July

9:41AM

Clear over the city. Showers are sitting on the ghats.