Comments on: Review of the BBC News website redesign

By: Auto Profit Machine

Auto Profit Machine — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:20:23 +0000

Auto Profit Machine…

adwords coupon…

By: hsfzrkhzlaf

hsfzrkhzlaf — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:25:46 +0000

1dopWY fcugeuteipcb

By: qvuvfnub

qvuvfnub — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:36:55 +0000

3SPkDy yrzfucykqzwx

By: Darrance

Darrance — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:53:59 +0000

I love raeding these articles because they\’re short but informative.

By: Google2

Google2 — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:10:01 +0000

Months on and I still miss the old layout. It looked elegant, it was efficient and you knew where you were. The new layout still looks like a mess, feels like there’s nothing on the page, pictures and stories somehow don’t connect, it is all so cumbersome.

I think the BBC was mistaken to copy other commercial news websites’ layouts. They are designed to hide adverts between the important stuff but the BBC does not carry adverts so the layout wastes space.

After saying that, I am still using an old 4:3 screen, so I don’t know, maybe it looks a lot less annoying viewed from a 16:9 screen.

By: RGBarjee

RGBarjee — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:10:02 +0000

Thanks for an interesting analysis consequencing. Your information architecture does make a lot of sense. However, for me, vertical navigation is so very much easier to read, and it gives me more vertical space.

On my netbook (1024 x 600 pixels), there is so much vertical space taken up by the browser window decorations, menu, address bar, tabs, status bar etc., that I place the windows taskbar on the right of my desktop.

Then, I have to zoom in to be able to read many sites, including BBC news, so that the horizontal navigation bar wraps around to 2 rows. Additionally, the fixed width format forces an unwanted horizontal scroll bar to appear as well.

Finally, the stupidly large BBC banner, BBC News logo, news ticker, dateline and absurd headline font size leave only 1 inch (approximately) of screen space for the actual content of the site, and that’s squeezed right up against the left edge of my screen :>(

The changes were clearly not designed for good accessibility, and break many good design practices. The speculation is that the redesign is all about advertising to overseas readers.

Not sure if this is relevant or helpful, but you seem to be more responsive than Steve Herrmann, so I’d be interested to hear your take :>)

PS. I already browse full screen, and have installed Ad Block Pro with the Element Hiding Helper to remove some of the junk. This does help me somewhat, but really, the BBC should have produced a site that adapts more gracefully to the user agent. I’m afraid I’ve given up with them after being such an avid reader for many years.

By: G Simpson

G Simpson — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:20:27 +0000

Keith, I note your last comment that the post is about the navigation system itself, not the actual content so I’ll try not to confuse the two. But to us non-IT literate BBC News readers, the system is the form, whilst the content is the function. Many posters have been seen to describe the new site as a triumph of form over function.

However, there was one part of your post that I understood – the running together of Science and the Environment, and with the Science part shortened to something quite incomprehensible. I think that in the past Science used to be combined with Technology, and Environment stood independently. This seemed quite logical. So I don’t understand why it has been decided that Science should be combined with the Environment.

Thanks for the post – I’m becoming less illiterate by the day!

By: consequencing

consequencing — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:57:01 +0000

Thanks for the heads up on the display of my page on your machine. Can you let me know which browser you’re using? Cheers. Keith.

By: consequencing

consequencing — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:44:13 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Paul. Just to clarify, this post is just talking about the navigation system itself, not the merits or otherwise of the content of the page. Cheers. Keith.

By: paul dagnan

paul dagnan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:31:06 +0000

Dont understand half of what you are on about. I am not an IT geek I am a News Page user and myself and thousands of others think the new design is a total disaster.
Driven by a need to develop a site that could accomodate adverts for the USA market it has given the Brits a dogs breakfast that looks like a 3rd rate tabloid.

Navigation is easier ??????? Are we using the same site ?

England news on the old site. One click on England, no scrolling a page devoted to England with all the stories from all areas neatly listed for further reading.

England news on the new site. Click on England and one story shows. Scrolling gives a few more then a map where you have to select individual areas of the country one after the other , 10 clicks minimum, when all was revealed before with 2 clicks

If you havnt, take a look at the 1000s of complaints on the Editors blog. A big silence in response from the Beeb.