New BBC Homepage Goes Live
Yesterday saw the long awaited introduction of the new BBC Homepage. A countdown calendar had been in place for the preceding days building up to the big launch. Having already seen the near complete version in Beta testing the new homepage is not a major shock, but I imagine it is for the casual web user.
I reviewed the Beta version of the BBC Homepage last December and to be honest not much has changed. Noticing the differences is a Where’s Wally style game of looking for minute changes in colour and shape.
New BBC Homepage
Beta version of BBC Homepage (December, 2007)
Visually you can’t really knock the site too much. It is clear, elegant and tailored to individual taste with colour and content options. However I’m still unsure what is the objective of the their changes. Similar services already exist and the BBC version does not offer as much choice. For example if I wanted the Euro-Dollar exchange rate chart I still have to dig in through the Currency part of the Market Data section of the existing BBC website
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Coming from Beta to production I expected to see greater customisability and perhaps the same look and feel coming to the News Homepage. Unfortunately that did not happen. The only change I can readily see is the removal of the search options above the search box. If you see other changes please leave a comment.
The problem with making one really good looking page is that it sets up the rest of the website for a fall. The visually splendor of the homepage looks nothing like any other page on the site and it makes you wonder why not change the whole thing or nothing at all. I can only imagine the difficulty in overhauling the BBC website with its millions of pages of linked to content. Any all out changes would need years of planning which is why I really respect the way they add new bits sensibly over time. Good examples of this would be their “related internet links” and “most popular stories now” sections.
Suggested Improvements
Better Personalisation Personalisation cannot be as a vague as a news category. Market data needs to be of top priority as an addition. Perhaps an API for users own content sources or at least the ability to add RSS feeds would be valuable.
Video We all know this one is coming. Why change the site for no good reason. The BBC’s Video facility (with the exception of iPlayer within the UK) is awful. An International News website needs quality Video for the International audience.
Overall
Visually it is a success and a nice addition. It is not world changing and currently does not offer much new to the market. I feel that the Ajax customisable content panels will be lost on a lot of users. The technologically savvy people who will comment on this redesign will be able to use them and mostly approve, but I can see older people not understanding the way it works and lamenting the old homepage. For an organisation like the BBC it really is about the overall audience reaction and as with the TV and Radio, only the viewer stats will tell the story there.
Posted 27.02.08