Hi, everyone!
As a side project, I’ve been working on an AQI app. While I initially never intended to release this (and I still may not), and it was mostly just out of interest to learn about app development, I’ve been spending many hours on it, and now I’m curious if it could be brought to a point where it’s good enough actually to do something with. While there are already quite a few AQI apps out there, I’ve noticed that they either tend to be overly complicated and overwhelm the user with information, or they’re too simple and I can’t find the more detailed information I want. To try and overcome this, I’ve tried to create an app that conveys the information clearly and quickly while having more details for those who need it.
Here are a couple of screenshots of the home screen. You can see two examples of the AQI - one in Mumbai and one in Singapore. As you can see, the health recommendations are based on the current AQI. This is quite simple, but I also wanted to add a distance icon (the colour representing the confidence interval of the reading compared to my current location). As you can see, I am in Singapore, so the icon is green, indicating the reading is likely accurate to me. Mumbai is 4000km away, and not accurate to me) and an update time.
While I didn’t want to overwhelm the user - and that is why the AQI has a prominent section at the top of the home screen, I also want to show PM2.5, PM10, temperature and humidity. Those can all be seen below, with their own statuses. While the home screen is designed to be simple, the tooltips can be tapped for more information, as shown in the image above and one below. This was the best balance I could find between not presenting too much information so as to overwhelm the user and also giving all of the details that a more informed user might want to find. Everything is based on WHO and U.S. EPA thresholds.
This is still in the very early stages, and I don’t know if I will ever actually get to the point of releasing it. However, I would be curious to hear your thoughts. There are already a few good AQI apps out there (see this post if you’re curious: 10+ Best AQI Apps (Air Quality Index Apps)), but I also feel like very few clearly and concisely communicate this data. Furthermore, all of the apps run ads (unless the company sells its own product) - something that I don’t intend to do as I find they ruin user experience. This will also be free, of course!
Going forward, I will add a live city/country ranking for AQI, and I also want to make sharing the air quality very straightforward. After all, the intention of the app is to improve awareness! I also need to sort out the settings menu and I want to allow for fully customisable notifications.
If anyone has any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Is there even a place for another AQI App?