More time outside. Less time comparing tabs.
OBX Field is an outdoor guide built around the Outer Banks. It brings weather, wind, tide, daylight, activities and places together so an idea for getting outside can become a practical plan.
OBX Field
OBX Field
Private tool · Active development
Interface Design · Data Presentation · Activity Planning
The interface in context.
Conditions and activities, brought together around an outing.
Coastal information · Activity planning · Source clarity
The Challenge
Turn scattered conditions into useful context.
Planning time outside means comparing weather, marine readings, daylight and a place to go. Those pieces often live on separate screens and describe different locations or times.
The challenge was to make the information approachable without hiding uncertainty. A measured reading, a forecast and a historical pattern need to remain distinguishable.
The design started with the activity and the area, then brought the relevant context into view.
The Approach
Start with what a person wants to do.
The guide organizes the decision around a clear path:
- Choose an Outer Banks area.
- Compare wind, rain, tide and daylight.
- Open a beach, surf, fishing or running view.
- Explore relevant places.
- Create a short outing plan.
- Keep source timing and missing data visible.
This makes the guide a place to plan an outing instead of another collection of weather numbers. The public demo uses fictional readings and temporary plans.
From the conditions to a plan.
The workflow, shown with fictional examples.
01 / Read the conditions
02 / Choose an activity
03 / Make an outing plan
The Interface
A coastal interface with room to breathe.
The current direction uses deep coastal blues, translucent panels, soft edges and large weather readings. Activity cards lead into focused views without making every detail compete at once.
Weather graphics, tide timelines and daylight cues make different types of information easier to scan. In this demo, illustrative coastal scenes stand in for the app’s archive photography.
The Building Process
The source matters as much as the screen.
Building the guide involved combining official weather and marine feeds, local time handling, historical context and place evidence. The interfaces needed to show where information applies and when it was collected.
The project evolved from a conditions dashboard toward activity and place planning. Missing-data states, readable cards and phone navigation became part of that work.
Where It Stands
OBX Field is a prototype under active development and testing. This case study presents its design and planning flow, without claiming a finished public service or measured adoption.
The embedded demo uses fixed fictional conditions. It does not provide a live forecast, beach safety assessment or current place-access guidance.
Temporary selections stay inside the demo. Production data adapters and the original application code are excluded from this public presentation.
Explore OBX Field.
A guided design demo with fictional examples. Browse the sections, move through the story or replay it. All changes are temporary.
The Takeaway
OBX Field connects information design and product thinking around a simple goal: helping someone make time outside, with the context they need to choose thoughtfully.