BBC website ditches modules in facelift The BBC is the only UK website which ranks in the top 100 sites in the world, and it's getting a fresh look today. The home page is dropping its customisable “modules” in favour of a more modern navigation design, partly inspired by the iPad. The module design was introduced during the reign of Titus The First (in MMVIII AD …
It would be better if the BBC spent more time fixing problems instead of tarting up stuff that works OK.
The dire Android iPlayer and this:-
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.taggames.doctorwho.androidnonuk&hl=en
Which is about as big a FAIL as you can imagine.
Really rather pissed with the BBC right now regarding the way it climbed into bed with, and allowed itself to be roughly sodomised by, Ecclestone and Murdoch empire over F1 coverage.
Yes it exactly matches the direction the Beeb is travelling in. more pictures, less words. Those left are scattered around rather than conveying a cohesive message. Its literally a 'feel the width, don't mind the quality'. As for the FONT!!!
Of the the main portals I think iPlayer by far the best. It sort of hangs together while still exhibiting style and making complex navigation dead easy. Its the New portal that really needs some work. Though after this beta perhaps not.
The BBC are going to get a huge amount of negative feedback from their more vocal users over this. This is partly because they always do with any change, but mostly because the small core of users who *do* customise their pages will hate having that taken away.
However, I like the changes. The BBC should be trying to create a common narrative with common talking points - mass media needs people to see the same things and talk about them with each other in order to be relevant. The new pages are a better showcase for BBC content and reflect a smaller BBC site that is to focus on BBC core output.
But it bears more resemblance to the intriguing (but not intriguing enough for me to spend money on it) new Windows 'tiles' interface than it does to anything Jesus-related.
Well, I can honestly say it's a bit 'different' but looking at it on a first gaze it seems far too busy. I quite like the box look which the current page uses as you knew where the content would be and at a glance you could see if any of that content had altered.
The issue which hits me that on a full HD panel there is a lot of space either side of the main content and the hidden content just pulls my eye away from the content. Simple fix there though, make the overlay a bit heavier to hide the content a little better and shrink the arrows a tad too.
Got to stop looking at it though... it's giving me a headache. I'm not against the change, but there are a couple of small tweaks which would take it to another level.
It still looks unfinished but I agree with you that it's an improvement on the old one. As for HD - I don't run any browser maximised at 2500 x 1600 - because I can have two windows open in usable size next to each other.
I'm sure I'm not alone in using the BBC as a reference website for my own work - not for copying slavishly but as an informed check for complex content - and it's nice to see that they are continually refining it, nice to see that the two-stage top navigation from the news site has finally gone. FWIW their new media guidelines are a wonderful resource.
the problem with the beeb is all the shit they do to try to satisfy all of the audience, I like the fact I can hide shit like "entertainment" I don't go to bbc.co.uk to find out about xfactor or what shoes some dumb ass is wearing, I go there to look for tv schedules for content I watch, news updates, including sport, local news without adverts, and weather.
all the rest is crap. I don't want, someone else might but not me.
I'm sure if I had kids I would use the cbeebies bits as well.
oh and iPlayer, no thanks, I vet that from my Virgin media box, or my Sony network media player that is hooked up to my tv, when that doesn't work its redux for me.
I like the fact that the page bloody well stays still unless you click on something. I hate those slides/carousels that change by themselves all the time. It's like giving someone a newspaper and saying "here, read this", then a second later whipping it away and shoving something else in their hands and saying "no, read this instead!" Sites such as, er... <cough>.
Apart from that: meh.
was talking last night about access to iPlayer if you're blind. They think they're doing better, and if you contact them with a problem then they promise to respond.
By the way, "AD" in a date goes before a year number, but is probably redundant when it's the Roman-ish number format. (I gather when there was a Roman Empire, they didn't use subtraction, thus MMIIII instead of MMIV for 2004. That was invented later?)
Which is not much of a change, my location rarely survived more than 1 return visit before the BBC relocated me to London. The customised tabs on the mobile view have a half-life around 3 visits before resetting themselves - because apparently I really, really need to know what crap reality show the BBC are pushing.
I await with trepidation what the new mobile front page will do, my phone really doesn't like the full version. I also notice the beta is just as resistant to reflowing as the old one, with the added bonus that you can't even rearrange anything manually for small screen devices.
Having pissed this money away, perhaps they'll now spend some on the rest of the site, sick&tired of 90% of programme pages linking straight to iPlayer *instead of giving information*. The whole fscking site is a maze of twisty little passages, all the same, with bugger all content down any of them.
«sick&tired of 90% of programme pages linking straight to iPlayer *instead of giving information*.»
Information such as a link to the podcast (for radio programmes). These days if you want to download a one-off podcast it seems you have to go to the "podcast" home page or use Google. Maybe the BBC thinks everyone uses iTunes? Well, they bloody well don't.
I'd be more impressed if they got their search facility better organised. Or the whole thing, come to that.
It's usually much quicker to find something on the BBC site by Googling it rather than using their own search box. Of course, by 'something' I mean the truly esoteric stuff - BBC radio programmes, TV shows …
like several others here, I only use the news landing page.
Out of curiosity I just had a look at the new "official" home page. I liked the 80's style clock.
That's about it.
Their main problem is that there are so many competing realms within the Beeb, and they all want a link from the home page.
I think they'd be better chucking it all away, and leave a google style interface (with menus if you really must). I'll have that by next week please.
Esentially - it boils down to:
It isn't an improvement
There's less content than before (as the article says "text light") and big pictures replacing the content.
I prefer to look at lists of news stories or articles and from there I make decision on what to click, and I want that list to be one of the first things I see - not have to go hunting through a scroll bar.
I 'm not interested in what other people are looking at, so putting Popular up front is no use to me.
I'm not so worried about loss of the modules/customizable content. I did customize the page - to put sport down the bottom where I never go.
I don't customize most of the web sites I visit because that would require me to log in and accept a cookie - and I don't want to.
Look, if you went to a shopping mall, and every shop there wanted to stamp your hand on entering, and wanted to see that stamp every step you took within that shop, and used that to say "We see you stopped in front of the cameras for 2 seconds. Let us tell you all about our cameras from now on to forever!" - you likely wouldn't go there, would you? You allow your hand to be stamped where it matters to you - a pub with a cover charge, for example.
Why should on-line be any different?
First impressions: yes, a bit "Metro"-interface-y ("tiles", etc.). Actually reminds me a bit more of CNN's iPad and Nokia apps, but I'd agree it's all quite fondleslab-influenced. Not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm willing to give it a chance.
I know this is a beta, but I'm wondering if they intend to allow users to sign in with a BBC ID and customise the content, so that the user will see "their" home page wherever they log in next? I could never quite understand why the BBC site didn't offer that option before - it seems to me there aren't many compelling reasons to register for a BBC ID otherwise (unless you're a regular visitor to the recipe pages, natch).
So, a cautious thumbs-up, with a hearty dollop of "go on, impress me more".
> The module design was introduced (in 2008).
Ah, thanks for the prompt to see it for the first time before it disappears. (I use a stored link to just go straight to the news page.)
Perhaps you can give me another prompt in 2014 to have a look at the finished fondleslab design before it disappears in turn?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
