Evaluation of Open Source Mobile Phone Weather Applications

The quality of our everyday lives undoubtedly depends on our alertness for upcoming weather conditions, particularly, extreme meteorological parameters. Sudden heat or cold waves, floods, thunderstorms, among others, are crucial events affecting human health and safety, that can even cause substantial economic losses. At present day, the technological advances offer practical and fast ways to access this information, such as consulting the internet and even more conveniently through weather applications. However, not all the open access applications offer the same quality of information or are presented in an intuitive manner. Therefore, in this study, selected open source mobile phone weather applications, available for Android and iOS systems, were evaluated, specifically focusing on the usability functions of these tools.