back to article 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 …

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  1. Tim Brown 1

    based on the iPad???!!!

    I hope Apple's lawyers aren't reading...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Dont worry about Apple's Lawyers getting an injunction

      They'll settle for 30% of the licence fee

  2. EddieD

    Oh gawd....

    Another day, another bbc web makeover.

    I don't want choice, it's your site, you choose - just make it clear and consistent and well routemarked.

    At least it's www.bbc.co.uk they're mucking around with - I never look at it, just having the news section as my launch pad.

    1. Eponymous Cowherd
      Unhappy

      Indeed....

      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.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice link

    "a_lick_of_paint_for_the_bbc_ho"

    *Chortle*

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe it's because I'm overseas...

    ...but it looks exactly the same.

    "Wikipedia lists him as “musician, entrepreneur and movie producer”."

    Enough said.

    1. Skoorb

      http://beta.bbc.co.uk/

      It's at http://beta.bbc.co.uk/

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Thanks...

        ...but bbc.co.uk and beta.bbc.co.uk are identical when viewed here in Aus. The Beeb do a bit of geo-fiddling for non-UK IP addresses.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Same in the US as well.

          No difference.

      2. Stuart 22
        FAIL

        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.

  5. jeremyjh
    Thumb Up

    I actually like this

    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.

    1. Shaun 1

      Aye, it does seem to have a bit of a metro feel to it

  6. Steve X

    eeek!

    Waaayyyy too cluttered. Dump half the stuff in the top slidey-wipey thing, and use a decent serif font for other bits.

    Still, it could be worse. Anyone looked at the Radio Times site recently?

  7. Matthew Wombell
    Stop

    Hmm

    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.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      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.

  8. Steve Oliver 1

    Funky sliding draws

    Draws what? A crowd of admirers?

    1. Guy Smillie
      Headmaster

      I've recently started to notice how common this is amongst non-rhotics. I can't work out whether they really think drawer and draw are the same word (due to the fact they can't/don't pronounce the 'er') or they just don't know how to spell it.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BBC homepage?

    Never used it. Having looked at the new one I don't think I'll be starting now.

    The BBC News pages are all I'm after and jolly good it is at delivering the news - but I still use adblock to remove the entire right hand column and a load of junk from the bottom of every page.

  10. Flash_Penguin
    Facepalm

    Iplayer Tablet Fail

    But will the iplayer give me the choice of mobile or desktop view when I visit with an Android tablet?

    Sick to death of fiddling with UA strings to get the better quality content that my Hansspad can cope with.

  11. jimbarter

    looks like...

    windows 8 to me...

  12. banjomike
    FAIL

    Man that is one UGLY pile ...

    of irrelevent dross. I hope they keep the old view.

    1. Ben 60
      Facepalm

      Re: 'Man that is one UGLY pile ...

      '... # FAIL of irrelevent dross. I hope they keep the old view.'

      Erm, have you seen the current/old page? I'm not sure how you've quite come to the conclusion you have.

      1. banjomike

        The current page is bad BUT you get the option to delete what you don't want etc etc. The new page doesn't seem to allow that. Yet.

        And yes, I use the BBC site many times a day.

        1. ZillaOfManilla

          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.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's better

    and we get all the entertainment from the Speek Ure Branes crowd moaning about it for the rest of the week. Win/win

  14. coderguy
    Thumb Down

    How does it cope with screen readers.

    That looks ok, but does it work for blind users?

    1. Wild Bill

      Turn off javascript and css and see for yourself. Looks alright, though the top accesibilty links don't seem to take you down to the content properly.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I'm not an ophthalmologist

        but I will stand corrected if you are blind

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    15-20%?

    Then why does everything have to work like a f*cking phone?

    1. ZillaOfManilla

      exactly, thought that's what bbc.co.uk/mobile was for. Why not just introduce /touch or /tab /tablet leave the desktop site as is.

  16. Evan Essence
    Meh

    Meh

    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.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Foget iPad...

    Looks a bit like Windows 8 to me....a bit 'tile-y', no?

  18. ChrisF

    How is that inspired by the iPad? Looks to be more "inspired" by the Metro UI design.

  19. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    BBC Radio 4's "In Touch" programme,

    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?)

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Where to put AD

      ...or after the year for consistency with "BC".

      (for others:) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini - the paragraph just above the content box explains why BC and AD go in different positions in the date.

  20. Paul Shirley

    "You can't yet set a location"

    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.

    1. Evan Essence
      Flame

      Podcasts

      «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.

      1. CmdrX3

        As far as the media are concerned London and the UK the same thing.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Maybe it's because I'm overseas

    Same for me ... except I'm not overseas - I'm in the UK but our corporate internet gateway is in France so the BBC insist on giving me the "world" version of the news site so I expect the same happens here!

  22. Thomas 18
    Meh

    You now have to enable the iplayer domain in NoScript

    That was the only change I noticed this morning but then it was pretty early.

  23. E net
    Paris Hilton

    Looks like a US web site now

    Pretty much identical to many US sites that have been using this format for quite some time. See salon.com or newser.com for example.

    Paris coz she's seen it all before

  24. Starkadder
    FAIL

    It's too much

    The new BBC Home Page is far too busy and uninformative. If they carry this treatment over to their news stories, which are well presented, I won't be using the site at all.

  25. John Styles

    Oh, I say

    That's rather good.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    El Reg

    Not in the Top 100 list ? Only 1 UK site in the top 100 list - I'm amazed.

    1. ChrisC Silver badge

      I too am amazed, given that the various "top 100 sites" lists I've found in a few minutes of Googling suggests that the UK share is more like 5% than 1%... care to divulge your source, Andrew?

  27. lecson

    Searching the BBC

    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 …

  28. xeroks

    Ugh

    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.

    1. Evan Essence

      Upvote for Google minimalism

      EOM

  29. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Given my opinion in the survey

    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.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Customization := log in

    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?

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hard times

    Where do they get the money to keep doing all this pointless messing about?

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Anonymous Coward

    "Where do they get the money to keep doing all this pointless messing about?"

    Through the license tax... sorry , fee.

    Its easy to spend money when its not yours , you didn't have to earn it and you don't have shareholders to answer to.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    "technologies like RSS, atom and xml."

    And there was me thinking XML is nothing but a trendy data format that any idiot can write.

    But no, obviously being on the cutting edge of white hot web 2.0 waffle this guy obviously knows far better than a mere software developer such as myself.

  34. Greg J Preece

    PS3 iPlayer

    Now I get where they were going with that...

  35. Tim Walker

    Per-user settings

    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".

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    that quote from Titus ...

    made me come over all sweary and violent again.

    but Ian Hunter seems quite down-to-earth: "said that the basic home page was a “glorified directory”". That's not very Shoreditch is it?

  37. Mike Flex

    > 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?

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Titus I

    Wikipedia lists Titus as a ''prolific Internet entrepreneur and Digerati'. He also appears to have written his own Wikipedia page.

    He was widely hated within the BBC.

    [citation needed]

  39. John 62
    Meh

    bbc.co.uk?

    I've only been there a few times. I generally only look up news, sport and iplayer.

    news used to be at news.bbc.co.uk

    Now that redirects you to www.bbc.co.uk/news/

    however, sport has stayed at news.bbc.co.uk/sport

    I still type news.bbc.co.uk from habit (and because it's shorter)

  40. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    FAIL

    Ack!

    The last change reduced the amount of actual content accessible, this just follows the trend. Talk about dumbing down.

  41. Roger Stenning
    FAIL

    Arrrrgh! My eyes!

    God, that's hideous.

    So much for simplicity of appearance, intuitive design, and ease of navigation.

    More bloody stupid let's-fix-this-it's-not-broke insanity.

    FAIL, writ large.

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