This is my first posting on this forum. I see there has been much discussion (and teeth gnashing) over the changes to WU. I have 3 Davis Vantage Pro stations uploading to WU, one of them for more than 4 years.
I have to say, I do NOT like the new look, at all. The designers have latched onto the false idea that the more gadgets, graphics, and space consumed the better. This is almost always the wrong tack in communicating quantitative information. One of the greatest of all-time scientific graphic designers, Edward Tufte, has a general rule: Maximize the information to ink (or pixels) ratio.
https://infovis-wiki.net/wiki/Data-Ink_RatioThe new look has embraced what Tufte has called “chart junk”. That’s exactly what all those dials and gadgets are. The original simple tabular form was far better, not that it couldn’t have been improved on.
The designers of the new WU look should step back and study Tufte closely. I doubt they will see my recommendation here or follow it, but there it is.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of constructive critique, I offer the following:
--I have soil moisture, soil temperature and leaf wetness sensors on all my stations, and I am disappointed to NOT see those readings in the new format. They are in the old format. Please, please being them back as options.
--We must be able to see the data graphed on YEAR time scales as well as monthly, weekly and daily. The pull down menu no longer shows Year time scale viewing as an option.
--We must be able to easily download data at daily (at least) time resolution. Download options seem to be gone.
--I was hoping that new WU options would include showing air quality sensor data, such as Purple Air sensors. I have two of them and it would be beautiful to have the option of having that data on the page.
For now, I’ll keep viewing the old format (Using lower case “id” in the old urls) and pray that the final version of the revised WU includes the above fixes, including ditching the space wasting graphics and gadgets (or giving us the option to use them or not). I sincerely would much rather have the old version working as an option than the current very limited, problematic version.