Speaker 1: Already, and this is this is the Daily Lot. This
Speaker 1: is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: the thirty first of October. I'm Sam Kauzlowski.
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween, Happy Halloween.
Speaker 2: I'm Billy fit Simons.
Speaker 1: I'm Billy Fit Simons.
Speaker 2: Earlier this week, the Bureau of Meteorology launched a brand
Speaker 2: new website. It costs more than four million dollars and
Speaker 2: was the first major update since twenty thirteen. Within days,
Speaker 2: the backlash was so intense that the federal government had
Speaker 2: to step in. On today's podcast, we're going to unpack
Speaker 2: what went wrong with the bomb redesign, why people reacted
Speaker 2: so strongly, and what the science tells us about why
Speaker 2: we hate it so much when familiar things get redesigned.
Speaker 1: Okay, Sam, I think we should start with why the bomb.
Speaker 1: I believe we are allowed to call it the bomb.
Speaker 2: We we're good.
Speaker 1: I think we'll get into but I think we should
Speaker 1: start with why they thought that they needed a rebrand.
Speaker 1: So my understanding is that this website was first launched
Speaker 1: on October twenty second. What was the reasoning behind the
Speaker 1: new website?
Speaker 2: So they haven't updated the website since twenty thirteen, so
Speaker 2: it has been a long time, especially in digital terms,
Speaker 2: twelve years is a very long time. They wanted something
Speaker 2: modern that worked better on mobile devices. I mean, think
Speaker 2: about how many screen sizes there were in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: There's so many more now. And the website sees massive traffic.
Speaker 2: So on any normal day, the bomb is visited by
Speaker 2: about one point eight million Australians.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 2: It's a serious I mean, quick maths, it's probably about
Speaker 2: one in thirteen Australians are looking at the bomb. On
Speaker 2: a standard day, when there's severe weather, that jumps to
Speaker 2: about five point seven million people, which is then about
Speaker 2: kind of one in four. So this is really critical infrastructure.
Speaker 2: And so they spent four million dollars on this website.
Speaker 2: Itch was meant to be a full redesign that involved
Speaker 2: a twelvemonth beta testing period, which is when you kind
Speaker 2: of give the website to users see how they interact
Speaker 2: with it. And they said that the feedback on the
Speaker 2: website through that testing was overwhelmingly positive.
Speaker 1: And so we're just talking about the website here. The
Speaker 1: rebrand was just to do with the website.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you have to remember as we do as
Speaker 2: young people especially, we are visiting websites on mobile more
Speaker 2: than ever before, So it's really important to remember that
Speaker 2: where people are engaging with this kind of thing is
Speaker 2: mostly in the palm of their hand.
Speaker 1: Got it okay, So they tested it, they invested millions,
Speaker 1: and then they launched it. How did that launch go?
Speaker 2: Well, the timing wasn't in their favor. It's not entirely
Speaker 2: their fault that they picked a really bad week to
Speaker 2: launch it weatherwise, but as we get into it, perhaps
Speaker 2: could have been prevented. So the website launched just as
Speaker 2: severe storms we're hitting southeastern Australia. There were one hundred
Speaker 2: kilometer and our wins in Brisbane that left one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand homes without power, twenty five thousand regional power adages
Speaker 2: in Melbourne and Greater Victoria, and people were trying to
Speaker 2: check the Bomb's website for critical weather updates and they
Speaker 2: were finding that they couldn't navigate this new design. And
Speaker 2: think about that as a moment. It's a moment of stress,
Speaker 2: and it's a moment where you're going to the Bomb
Speaker 2: for critical infrastructure information, you're greeted with the new design.
Speaker 2: It was never really going to end.
Speaker 1: Well, and so what were there specific complaints? Was it
Speaker 1: that they just didn't know exactly how to navigate this
Speaker 1: in a case of emergency, or were there specific things
Speaker 1: missing from the website.
Speaker 2: I found trying to break down the specific complaints really
Speaker 2: interesting because it was you're right, Billy, it's more than
Speaker 2: just I don't like the look of this or they've
Speaker 2: changed the color. It was about the functionality. And the
Speaker 2: biggest issue was with radars. So on the old website,
Speaker 2: you could track where storms were heading and estimate when
Speaker 2: they would reach your area, and that's really critical, especially
Speaker 2: for emergency services who might be planning a response. That
Speaker 2: feature was gone. Users also know the radar updates were delayed,
Speaker 2: so you were only seeing updates that were current as
Speaker 2: of maybe an hour ago, and that meant that storms
Speaker 2: could hit your area before the website showed that they would.
Speaker 2: The color scheme had changed, but that's not as significant
Speaker 2: as something like the color scheme of hale showing up
Speaker 2: on the radar.
Speaker 1: And so you heard this thing about the color of
Speaker 1: hale that they changed the color of hail from black.
Speaker 2: It was black, and it was now showing up in
Speaker 2: the same way as rain, and so there wasn't as
Speaker 2: it wasn't as easy to distinguish hail from rain, which
Speaker 2: might mean the difference between parking your car undercover or not.
Speaker 2: And according to Steve Turton, who is a professor of
Speaker 2: environmental geography at Central Queensland University, even within the first
Speaker 2: couple of days, farmers in regional Queensland couldn't enter their
Speaker 2: own GPS coordinates to check the weather for their specific properties,
Speaker 2: which might be hundreds of kilometers in size, and commercial
Speaker 2: fishermen were heavily reliant on the radar to decide whether
Speaker 2: it's safe to go out fishing or not, and they
Speaker 2: lost that ability as well.
Speaker 1: Right, So the issue was beyond just not liking the rebrand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, our point of reference at TDA is funk Gate
Speaker 2: and when we changed our fond and people didn't like it.
Speaker 2: And as I was investigating the Bomb's week, it struck
Speaker 2: me how different these two examples were. Yeah, people didn't
Speaker 2: like the way TDA looked, but TDA itself didn't change.
Speaker 2: This was about changing functionality.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to talk more about funk Kate because
Speaker 1: I actually think that there are some similarities there that
Speaker 1: I want to get to. But first I want to
Speaker 1: go to you mentioned earlier that the government got involved,
Speaker 1: which I imagine isn't that rare here because the bomb
Speaker 1: is government funded. At what point did the government though
Speaker 1: step in with this?
Speaker 2: So we mentioned before it was launched on the twenty second.
Speaker 2: On the twenty seventh of October, just five days after
Speaker 2: the launch, was when we first heard from the Environment
Speaker 2: Minister Murray what He actually arranged a snap meeting with
Speaker 2: the bomb's acting chief executive to convey the message that
Speaker 2: the site was quote not fulfilling the expectations of many users,
Speaker 2: and he demanded urgent improvements. Then we heard from Energy
Speaker 2: Minister Chris Bowen and National's leader David little Proud, who
Speaker 2: said that it actually reflected broader problems at the Bomb.
Speaker 2: This was an overwhelming government response and also bipartisan, which
Speaker 2: is important to note.
Speaker 1: And how did the bomb respond to all of this criticism,
Speaker 1: both from the public and from the government.
Speaker 2: So Acting CEO Peter Stone issued an apology. He said
Speaker 2: that the bomb appreciated that it would take time for
Speaker 2: people to adjust. And that's an interesting wording there, because
Speaker 2: Stone's response suggested the Bureau thought the complaints were mainly
Speaker 2: about people needing time to adjust to something new, rather
Speaker 2: than genuine problems with the designs and the functionality itself.
Speaker 2: And many users on social media called that gas lighting,
Speaker 2: and so the Bomb's problems really did compound. Then with
Speaker 2: that apology, users were saying, especially on Reddit, this really
Speaker 2: kind of caught on there. They were saying, we don't
Speaker 2: need time to adjust, You've removed the features that we need, right.
Speaker 1: I have to say, when I first saw this story,
Speaker 1: I was surprised that we were talking about a bomb
Speaker 1: rebrand going wrong, because a very similar thing happened just
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago when they asked the media
Speaker 1: asked to not call them the Bomb, and then there
Speaker 1: was so much controversy about that, and that was part
Speaker 1: of a rebrand.
Speaker 2: And that was in twenty twenty two. So a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago they came out and said, you can't
Speaker 2: call us the Bomb anymore. We want to be called
Speaker 2: the Bureau of Meteorology. And they spent two hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars on that exercise. They hadn't reserved the
Speaker 2: Twitter handles they would have needed to change their name,
Speaker 2: and sure enough, within about forty eight hours, they released
Speaker 2: a statement saying that the public could actually refer to
Speaker 2: them however they wanted to, including the BOMB, which I
Speaker 2: think is how most of us kind of know the agency.
Speaker 1: Now we'll get to more about Bomb's rebrand in just
Speaker 1: a moment, but first here is a quick message from
Speaker 1: today's sponsor. I guess we should say that, you know,
Speaker 1: government agencies rebranding isn't something that is unique to the BOMB.
Speaker 1: That is something that happens across the boards, both for
Speaker 1: government agencies and for companies like TDA. Again funk Kate
Speaker 1: comes up again. But it is a usual part and
Speaker 1: it also is necessary for companies to update their websites
Speaker 1: and to remain modern.
Speaker 2: And it does happen sometimes in really good ways. I mean,
Speaker 2: you see some legendary brands out there do rebrands that
Speaker 2: we all forget about six months later, and they worked
Speaker 2: really well. In government, it does seem to be tricky.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was one example I was looking at
Speaker 2: from twenty seventeen where then New South Wales Premier Gladys
Speaker 2: spiagically and asked every major cultural institution in New South Wales,
Speaker 2: so Sydney Opera House or Taronga Zoo, the Australian Museum
Speaker 2: to all update their logos to the Warata Flower. That
Speaker 2: cost the government one hundred and sixty thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: come up with a proposal there never happened because all
Speaker 2: the institutions as well as the public pushback pretty hard.
Speaker 2: So it does seem to be particularly tricky for public institutions.
Speaker 2: And the big undercurrent here as well is this money
Speaker 2: that they're spending. It's our money. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: taxpayer funded rebrands, which is different again to a private
Speaker 2: company or TDA doing this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: As didn't quite cost that much. I didn't cost that
Speaker 1: much and that's why it didn't go so well exactly, but.
Speaker 2: Also didn't create this much angle with something that people
Speaker 2: needed for critical infrastructure, which is I think why we're
Speaker 2: talking about it on a news podcast today. But as
Speaker 2: it stands, the bomb is sticking with the change.
Speaker 1: Right, so they are sticking with it. Have experts said
Speaker 1: anything about what they could have done? Differently?
Speaker 2: Experts love a bit of commentary around this sort of
Speaker 2: moment and use it to create an example for what
Speaker 2: you shouldn't do, and there's been a heap of commentary
Speaker 2: this week. The key themes here really have been about
Speaker 2: the timing, the user testing angle, and agility. So firstly
Speaker 2: on timing, launching a major website redesign as a weather
Speaker 2: agency at the beginning of a spring storm season and
Speaker 2: amid heat waves is a bold move. In response, BOMB
Speaker 2: meteorologists Angus Heinz defended the timing. He said, it's a
Speaker 2: rare day where we don't have severe weather somewhere in Australia.
Speaker 2: I think he's got a point there, But experts say
Speaker 2: they could have done then a gradual rollout and given
Speaker 2: users more notice of the change. Steve Turden from Central
Speaker 2: Queensland University, the expert I referenced before, said when a
Speaker 2: public service implements major modifications, it is crucial for regular
Speaker 2: users to comprehend these changes and access the information they require.
Speaker 2: In this instance, the bureau faulted.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they picked the wrong time. But the other
Speaker 1: two reasons that you mentioned were testing and agility, so
Speaker 1: take us through those.
Speaker 2: So this inadequate user testing point is interesting because the
Speaker 2: BOMB says that they did test, that they did twelve
Speaker 2: months of testing. But we can see from the last
Speaker 2: week if professional meteorologists, farmers and emergency services are all
Speaker 2: highlighting serious concerns, then it would probably be fair to
Speaker 2: say there were problems in the testing methods themselves. And
Speaker 2: then finally, this point around agility is the idea of
Speaker 2: how should the BOMB now respond to criticism that we've
Speaker 2: seen over the past few days. One analyst said, it
Speaker 2: is not clear to us why the app redesign was
Speaker 2: rolled out broadly, and we are even less clear on
Speaker 2: why it hasn't been more aggressively.
Speaker 1: Rolled back already interesting.
Speaker 2: Which is fascinating. And I think what we learned obviously
Speaker 2: through our rebrand and perhaps what we're seeing playing out
Speaker 2: with the Bomb now is any rebrand, government agency or
Speaker 2: private company probably needs a contingency plan of what to
Speaker 2: do if it's not received in the right way.
Speaker 1: For anyone listening who isn't aware of our rebrand, I
Speaker 1: know that we have referenced it a few times. But
Speaker 1: about a year ago, two years ago, two years ago,
Speaker 1: TDA launched a rebrand and it just went absolutely all fully.
Speaker 1: The audience did not like the new font that we
Speaker 1: chose for that rebrand, and they.
Speaker 2: Liked everything else. They liked colors, the new logo, the
Speaker 2: new kind of vibe. The font was the sticking point. Yes.
Speaker 1: I actually was listening to another podcast talk about this
Speaker 1: Bomb rebrand and they were saying, imagine your rebrand going
Speaker 1: so badly that the government pulls you aside and says
Speaker 1: not great. Yeah, And they were like, can't relate, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, look, we can't quite relate. But
Speaker 1: the Victorian premiere was commenting on our post saying this
Speaker 1: is an awful font, please change it. And I think
Speaker 1: at the point that you do have politicians getting involved,
Speaker 1: you probably know something's not great. But what's interesting is
Speaker 1: that we did go back to.
Speaker 2: Our original scene in terms of the agility point. We
Speaker 2: can pat ourselves on the back for that we were
Speaker 2: agile and we actually switched it back. It will be
Speaker 2: interesting to see if the Bomb does that as well.
Speaker 2: I wanted to end though Billy with just this one
Speaker 2: key idea around change, because I think that we instead
Speaker 2: of getting just stuck in the detail of this, it's
Speaker 2: cool to think about the way that our brains work.
Speaker 2: And there's this basic idea called loss of version, and
Speaker 2: loss of version is by this Nobel Prize winner Daniel Cannerman.
Speaker 2: He says that we feel worse about losing something than
Speaker 2: we do about gaining something, even if they're of the
Speaker 2: same value. So if I take a dollar off you
Speaker 2: but give you a dollar, you feel a bit worse
Speaker 2: about the fact that I took that dollar off you.
Speaker 2: And so people typically weigh losses with products, apps, websites,
Speaker 2: services about twice as heavily as gains, and so BOMB
Speaker 2: users have lost stuff. They've lost familiar navigation, they've lost
Speaker 2: the ability to track a storm, even the way that
Speaker 2: our thumbs move. We've lost that muscle memory of knowing
Speaker 2: where to go. So even though we've gained a clearer,
Speaker 2: more modern app interface, the losses are mattering more on
Speaker 2: a purely psychological level. And that's why the bureau's response
Speaker 2: emphasizing that the same information was still available. Perhaps that's
Speaker 2: why it felt a bit flash and it did create
Speaker 2: more of a storm or the bomb that they're still
Speaker 2: not out of.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's so interesting learning the psychology behind it, and
Speaker 1: I can relate. I mean something like Instagram, which has
Speaker 1: changed so much over the past fifteen years since it
Speaker 1: first launched, and I feel like every single time they
Speaker 1: change it. There is controversy about not necessarily rebrand but
Speaker 1: the changes and users are always first saying we hate that,
Speaker 1: and then it just becomes normal again. And then when
Speaker 1: they change it back or change other things once again,
Speaker 1: there's controversy. It is a thing that you just don't
Speaker 1: like change, but then you look back at how it
Speaker 1: looked ten years ago and you go, oh, that sucked.
Speaker 1: Of course it needed to change.
Speaker 2: And just because there's a psychological concept behind why we
Speaker 2: don't like something doesn't necessarily mean that's okay. I mean
Speaker 2: we're also we can easily explain our fear of the
Speaker 2: other and our fear of the unknown. That doesn't make
Speaker 2: it something that we should be proud of. So I
Speaker 2: found that loss of version concept interesting because it's clearly
Speaker 2: explainable why something like a bomb redesign doesn't go down well.
Speaker 2: Whether we should all be pushing through and finding new
Speaker 2: ways around the app, whether that's a reflection on how
Speaker 2: inflexible we are as users, is probably another conversation better
Speaker 2: for psychologists, But at the end of the day, I
Speaker 2: think the key point here is around that critical infrastructure
Speaker 2: and easily accessing weather information when you need it most
Speaker 2: is different to browsing on the shopping app or a
Speaker 2: social media platform.
Speaker 1: A very interesting conversation, Thanks especially for our Friday, which
Speaker 1: is also Halloween. As I mentioned, Happy Halloween, Happy Halloween.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for explaining it. Thanks Billy, and
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Speaker 1: The Daily Os. We will be back this afternoon with
Speaker 1: your evening headlines, but until then, have a great day.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily Os acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.