News and Sports Website Refresh: Your Comments
Yesterday, we launched a visual refresh of the BBC News and BBC Sport web sites, which follows on closely from the launch of embedded audio and video (see John O' Donovan's previous post) and is the latest phase in an ongoing process of iteration.
Our aspirations for this phase can be boiled down to this simple design goal:
we wanted a fresher, more modern and open look that makes better use of both horizontal space and photos.
In response to Steve Herrmann's and Ben Gallop's posts about the refresh, we had almost 1,000 comments by late last night.
There's a lot of useful detailed feedback that our technical teams are sifting through (thanks!) and several themes about the design have emerged:
Site widening
Many of you are happy that we're now making better use of available horizontal space, but many have written (like Gareth Jones) that you now have to scroll horizontally to see the whole page.
We thought long and hard about the right moment to move to a new width. Go too early and we risked leaving too many people behind. Wait too long and we have an increasingly dissatisfying experience for a growing majority of users.
Our conviction that we'd reached the tipping point was borne out by the increasing amount of feedback we'd had from you about the old site not making good use of the horizontal screen real estate.
As Steve Herrmann and Ben Gallop have both mentioned, 95% of you have your screen resolution set to 1024 pixels wide or wider. And that number is growing every year.
As Richard Titus mentioned in his most recent post, this new width, which is part of the new pan-BBC language we'll be rolling out onto all of the BBC's new and redesigned sites, is still conservative compared to sites like Yahoo!, MSN, CNN and Sky.
White space
A lot of you (like Robin Fisher) have praised the new design's use of white space, while others (like John Daniels) feel that it's too much.
Some have also mentioned that you have to scroll vertically in order to see the same amount of content that you used to see without scrolling.
We added the extra white space because a number of users told us, through surveys, listening labs and usability tests, that the previous design was starting to look "cluttered" and "busy". And many of you say you like the updated look and the extra room to breathe. So we'll continue to pay close attention to your feedback on this, both positive and negative, to see if we need to adjust the balance.
The new global masthead
Several themes in your comments are about the new global masthead, which is part of the new pan-bbc.co.uk visual language.
Unfortunately, there were some last-minute development bugs and we weren't able to launch with the complete new global navigation, instead launching with the placeholder you've commented on. Now that we're up and running, we’ll be working hard to fix those bugs. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview of the global navigation, including the "Explore the BBC" menu, which offers easier access to more of the BBC than ever before.
Julie Dodd will be blogging in the next week or so about the new BBC visual language, which is a big part of our work to modernise bbc.co.uk.
Type colours
Some of you think that the type colours are too light. We'll explore this more as you settle into the design.
Customisation
Several of you have said it'd be great to have more customisation on the BBC News and BBC Sport sites, and you're asking not just for content customisation but also for customising the page width to stretch with the browser or device.
This phase of the "site refresh" is just one of many planned over the next year, and our plans include adding more customistion in a later phase.
What we focus on next will be determined in part by the feedback we get to this first phase - so keep the comments coming!
Julia Whitney is Head of Design & User Experience, Journalism, BBC Future Media & Technology
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~40~RS~)
Comments
Thanks for the update - its nice to see that you are still open to feedback on the design and I look forward to seeing it develop over the coming weeks and months. As with any change, it'll take a little while to get used to but I definitely think it is a step in the right direction.
Keep going!
90% of the comments were complaints that there is too much whitespace, less story
links and you have to scroll vertically far
too much.
You seem to have just ignored these issues, please resolve them immediately.
I really like the new design, as you say, looks much less cluttered.
I would like to see a change to the RSS feeds that come from the BBC News page though, at the moment you try and summarise an article in a dozen words which I then need to visit the site to read. I'd much rather have most if not all of the article on the RSS feed. This always seemed odd to me as I have many RSS feeds from commercial sites that provide the whole article meaning I don't even need to visit their site (and see the ads) yet the BBC which gains no real benefit from me visiting provide almost no information in the RSS feed.
I have still seen no comment on why a fixed width must be used - why can't the site be designed to expand/contract to the size of the window? While screens may be wider, windows don't have to be.
I don't know whether it's because it's April 1 or whether it is the change of website design, but many links seem to be broken. I was even unable to post to the Sport's page blog. I wounder whether I can post this time.
I liked on the old design being able to quickly read the headlines.
As you say, there was an urgent need for more white space, but through an apparent combination of poor design and sloppy coding you've over-egged the pudding, particularly in terms of vertical white space.
It no longer looks cluttered or busy - it looks practically empty. It now appears like you're hiding nearly all of the content the website produces every day. I have a large monitor and I only see about 9 news stories above the fold when I log on. I could see well over 20 on the old site. This problem is amplified on browsers such as Safari. I presume the amount of news you can see is also affected by advertising for people outside the UK.
Also, is there really the need to have two mastheads or two sets of BBC astons? I have no design background, but it really jars - are you telling us that everyone in the website's design team think that works?
The refresh seems to be doing its best to promote an air of amateurism for one of the best and most professional websites in the world. Did you do any user testing before launch?
Julia,
Are you and the BBC actually listening to what people are saying? Or are you just paying lip service?
The vast majority of people who have commented (and by the way, isn't about time that you sorted out that feature so that it isn't bug-ridden) don't like the changes.
Your article puts a tremendous amount of spin on the comments that have been made and suggests that opinion is equally divided. This in NOT the case.
By my reckoning only about 1 in 20 have expressed a positive opinion.
Your audience (the people that fund you) are saying they DON'T like it.
Isn't it about time you addressed their concerns more seriously? or would you prefer them (and me) to go elsewhere?
You have taken a great resource and made it substantially worse.
While the new scheme is refreshing it strikes me that this "white space" that has been created is actually at the expense of content. The frontpage now seems to contain far far less information than previously. There three small headline stories and links to just 6 others. The rest of it is light filler material (e.g. a necklace and the leadership material of a WWII heroine). Scrolling down each region has only one headline each.
The sports section is even worse with just one headline story and the balance is comment pieces.
What made the BBC website special was that on one page you could gather all the info you wanted. The new version has cut back on content to provide white space. I think you missed the fact that much of your target market want info presented to them as compactly as possible. Those who wanted more white space really wanted less content and you have obliged.
I can't see myself continuing to use the bbc site as my primary source of news and sports.
OK, the global navigation bar is very nice.
What possible reason is there with remaining with grey-on-white text? The crazy white-space padding? And why on earth roll out a broken site header?
(The design mock-up doesn't look very promising -- how does doubling or more the number of clicks to reach the main parts of the BBC site enhance usability?)
And how can you say that users said "that the previous design was starting to look "cluttered" and "busy"" when in the first blog post announcing the change, it was stated that most users wanted the design to remain as it was?
I must say, I rather like it. Increased width is a plus, and I'm glad to see the new masthead getting more use. Looking forward to the developments with video content on news in the future.
I think the problems with the masthead stem from the fact right now it looks like there are two: and having the BBC logo on both with no alignment looks a bit odd.
Oh yes, and the thing that annoys me most about BBC News and has done with the past layout designs... I recognise that the pages being static is great for load, but that means there's about 4 different layouts in use depending on what story you're looking at, and it's more annoying as you change between new stories which are full width, and older stories... well, which aren't.
What a patronising and highly selective response.
"We'll explore this more as you settle into the design" simply means "we'll ignore you you until you stop complaining"
You have failed to take any note of the literally hundreds of people who say they have wider screens but simply don't use them the way you think we do, instead couching the answer as if you're addressing people with a maximum 640 * 480 screen res.
Had the site been properly coded, using an expandable design, this wouldn't be an issue. As it is you've assumed that because we have wide screens we use the whole space for a single window.
Very few people do this.
And please spare the corp-speak. A screen res cannot be part of a "new pan-BBC language" and you just sound very silly indeed using such phrases.
This is hardly the advertised point-by-point response.
I get the horrible feeling that this is another 'nanny BBC knows best'. Similar to the smug answers from programme makers on Points of View and News Watch.
Language is illustrative of what's going on inside the author's head. I wonder what these lovely pieces of jargon illustrate:
"new pan-BBC.co.uk visual language" - erm, a new set of logos
"visual refresh" - erm redesign
"ongoing process of interation" - oh dear! - I hope it means we'll keep on changing it 'till we get it right, but I doubt it.
This is a fair response to the feedback (both measured and reactionary), however a few points:
Your explanation of the screen widths dilemma is either disingenuous or badly-thought through: It doesn't matter that 95% of users have a screen width of 1024px... What does matter is that less than 100% of those users do not want to be forced to run their web browser full screen, for a number of good reasons (multitasking, and viewing comfort to name but two. Mobile devices is another kettle of fish).
Whitespace and massive black bar: both have pros and cons - but both have the shared con that they make it harder to navigate to content: a lot more hunting with the mouse is needed. You could look at redressing this in future design iterations.
Finally, there were a lot of geeky criticisms, for instance the 347 validation errors, and abuse of tables for page layout. I understand that you might not want to address these comments in this blog, but you could restore a lot of confidence by finding a way of saying "we know; and we're doing something about it..."
Thanks for the update. The new banner should improve access across the BBC site which will be a huge improvement.
On the white space issue, I think I agree with the majority that at the minute the site really borders on the 'sparce' rather than just clean. Lookind forward to the continued updates.
Can you comment on the amount of testing you've done on various browser platforms? The usability of the site on the iPhone for example has deteriorated significantly.
Also -- the new masthead is still too tall. Why are the 'Text only' and 'Help' links taking up a line on their own above the BBC logo?
No matter how much focus group testing you've done these changes really don't seem to have been thought through very well at all. You seem to be appealing to the lowest common denominator which is, I suspect, people that look at the pretty pictures on the BBC website and don't read the content.
I think I'll be reverting my homepage to the NYTimes (I'm prepared to put up with the adverts there as there is much more information there for me to consume).
although it doesnt bother me that the page is now full screen (i browse at full size, even though i have multiple windows and applications open), i think people are somewhat right about the fact the resolution should be liquid depending on the size of the users browsers. dunno how easy that is for you but it does seem to restricting otherwise.
You know what? Yes, it did look cramped shoved to the left of the screen. And the way to resolve that was to go to FLUID WIDTH, not a wider fixed width.
There were even stylesheets available to fix that: http://userstyles.org/styles/search/http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2F
[The rest of this post will be presented in WhiteSpaceVision (TM pending), as part of a modernisation drive, since normal prose is too "cluttered" and "busy"]
What - you - have - done - is - to - make - every-thing - far - too - spaced - out.
-
And, - worse - you've - NOT - USED - CSS. - You - have - used - tables - and - fixed - size - images - for - layout.
-
What - is - this - 1998?
-
All - that - does - is - render - the - page - inaccessible - to - others - who - might - want - to - use - non - PCs - or - to - fix - your - mistakes - for - their - own - PCs.
-
And - ensure - the - page - does - not - validate.
-
And - the - double - header - is still - inexcusable - -- - you - could - put - the - "Explore" - button - on - the - BBC - News - header.
[And PLEASE close up the bloody gaps!]
Bizarrely I'm now using Safari to view the new site and I like it a whole lot more already as I think the softer text works well and is overall easier to read. Sidebars are great too - much bigger and easier to navigate than the old cramped offerings.
My main issue though still has to be the new masthead. Having seen this appear first months ago on the new BBC Three site I imagined it must be a work in progress but to be honest even the preview here does not look great. The text links above the logo skew what should be obvious placement of all the other features, simply making it look odd. If these links are crucial, please, please move them!
Also, the placement of the BBC News logo right next to the BBC logo in the masthead gives the impression of BBC identity overkill - we typed in the address, we know who you are!
I'm all for Beta testing, but sometimes I think the BBC are going far to far with rushing out such dodgy launch versions.
Glad to hear that the new site is still work in progress - looking good so far, but can't wait for custom content and more embedded video!
The other online paper I read is the New York Times, which also sadly started using blue type a while ago. Still there is so much more news visible at first glance, and they carry more advertising.
The grey type is hard to read.
It should be about news not white space.
Have you looked at how it displays on an iphone? Very hard to navigate. Just all empty space.
Thanks for the continuous work on the site - it remains one of the best resources for news.
With regard to horizontal resolution, while I am sure most people do have a screen size of at least 1024x768, I would be surprised if most people kept their browser window maximized (particularly those who, because of the benefits of tabbed browsing, leave their browsers open all the time); however, unless the window is maximized, the site is too large on a 1024x768 screen.
I realise that given the complexity of the BBC News site, this probably isn't possible, but it has crossed my mind that it might be possible to design different stylesheets for the site, suited to different screen resolutions, for users to choose from.
Thanks for your efforts, either way!
I think the new embedded media player is really good and would like to see it used more. One suggestion - I would like to be able to know before I click on a link if it will have a video in it - would it be possible to have a little symbol (possibly the "i" from the iPlayer logo) next to links with embedded media?
On the subject of page width - Yahoo's page width may be larger, but it automatically adjusts to fit your browser. . .unlike the new BBC. And though I must admit that the new design looks quite swish from work (with my 36-inch graphics display), the poor readability and font problems I encounter at home on my 10-inch laptop (running Safari 3.1) is a less-than-acceptable trade off. Please try harder to get the bugs out of everything BEFORE the launch. . . sometimes deadline slip is a good thing.
Yet, still no answers about the lack of a fluid width design?
Julia, your post reads to me like obfuscation - a "number" of users tld you this, "many" like it now etc, coupled with vage promises to keep an eye on things and perhaps (or, more likely, perhaps not) respond.
It really doesn't matter that you feel the new look is still conservative cf CNN etc - it is not the competition you should be wortrying about but your own readership & your own responsibilities to present news etc.
I'd love to see some actual figures from these surveys etc, ideally including age ranges also. As it stands, the thing seems to be an unmitigated disaster and your justification - in typical "Points Of View" editiorial response style - is to refer blandly to numbers and sentiments which cannot be challenged.
I, for one, have already gone elsewhere to read the news itself. I simply cannot cope with the amount of scrolling, the eye-strain and the vast consumption of screen "real estate" een on a 1280 monitor. A great site, gone bad.
Thanks for this, it is interesting to see the design philosophy behind the changes.
I would really love to see some narrowing of the height of either the black BBC banner or the red BBC News banner, since it is a large portion of the "above the fold" space. Perhaps the red BBC News banner is a good candidate for slimming a little if the black BBC banner is to be fixed across the BBC's sites...
I haven't read all 1000 comments but from a quick word search two things *appear absent.
1. The left-side navigation bars are too close together. Combined with the on-focus colour change this would definitely cause issues for users who have trouble using a mouse. I don't know what's gained from the on-focus, either.
2. Removing links from the page seems design-centred rather than user-centred. This pushes people towards search, which is an issue for you. You don't provide enough alternative navigation routes, like a site map.
Overall, I'm disturbed that, from your presentation of it, your development doesn't appears to be led by usability. For example, you don't explain changes in terms of testing results and you appear to be prepared to change design elements from blog responses. You mention that you did some testing but can you talk more about the incorporation of testing results into the design changes.
I do 'like' the redesign, but I'm saying my opinion isn't relevant!
You're missing the point entirely over the screen width. Its nothing to do with 1024 resolution or leaving users with old technology behind. Its about how people use the space. Most people run several applications at once and have floating menu bars or even just favourites on screen so the new site taking up the whole screen is a real pain as now we have to scroll across to see it all - sometimes several times a minute.
Why not just let users have the option to go back to the "classic" layout if they prefer in much the same way as you have a "low Graphics" option.
So much for listening to the users... a vast majority of the comments I read yesterday were negative towards the new design. You seem to be sticking your fingers in your ears and persisting with the idea that the new design is actually good. I guess it's just too hard for you to admit when you are wrong.
I'm sorry but you seem to have missed the point about width. I have 1024 x 768 resolution and when the news or sport front pages load I see far too much of the two HUGE mastheads (plus advertising above that if I'm lucky, as I live abroad) which takes up maybe 20-30% of the screen.
I see FAR less content vertically than I used to, and I also have to sit nearly a metre back from the monitor to scan the page as a whole - otherwise I simply miss detail which is to one side of the screen.
Perhaps your focus groups etc. were composed entirely of IE users using mammoth resolution, but please don't imply that 95% of us are using higher than 1024 as you do above, and thus that only people with REALLY old computers are the ones complaining.
Please reduce the mastheads (why two of them?!), please reduce the line spacing, please reduce the width (perhaps to a halfway house between what it is now and was before...)
I'm staggered that I can only view 80% of the content I could before despite the increased width, I'd like to zoom out the current design by maybe 25%, and can only say that your previous design was the easiest to browse on the web (vs. Guardian, Independent, Times, Le Monde, Libération etc. among others).
Quite why you decided to spend millions of pounds redeveloping it is quite beyond me.
The new design is simply to big and airy to manipulate properly until we all have 20"" high res monitors, please take heed!
The type colours are too light and hard to read. They were yesterday, they are today and I have no doubt they will be in a months time. I'm not sure what you mean by 'settle into the design' it either works or it doesn't.
Sadly, this looks more like a "point-by-point justification" rather than a "point-by-point response".
I can understand that you might get a bit defensive when you have been barraged by comments by about one thousand people, most of whom are questioning your design decisions. Nevertheless when you've had a chance to calm down a bit, I hope that you will respond appropriately.
There does seem to be a massive majority consensus on the white space issue in particular - there is too much empty space and as a result visitors have to work harder to extract the information from your site. I hope that this is fixed soon.
Did you actually read all the feedback, or just discard the 80% that didn't agree with the site changes? Did you not notice that the site was running at below the normal number of users as people were deserting? And why can't you have the "old style" there as an alternative for UK users? At the very least you need to stop assuming that everyone uses a 1024 width screen! And I'm afraid I don't use places like Yahoo very often for the very same reasons that I don't like your site redesign. *Please* listen to the 80% instead of just the 20% who did like it.
Excellent fobbing off. It still doesn't really answer a couple of important questions, mainly
1)Why can you not design the website to flow with the window? Firefox users have been able to download CSS sheets to enable this for the old style website for quite a while (www.userstyles.org), and these were knocked together in people's spare time.
2)Why waste so much space with a big black bar? the "Explore the BBC" button would fit into the BBC News masthead quite nicely if you made it not pink.
3)As you have noted, websites like CNN are 1024 pixels wide. The difference is that CNN's website is left-aligned with the section links at the top, and all of the "features" and video down the right hand side. Also the main news stories
This means that you can shrink the window to around 800px wide and still have access to all of the news articles (all headlines single spaced incedentally) without having to scroll around.
I'm not a web developer but even I can see that this site falls woefully short of the standard expected from such an important and well used site.
It is brilliant to see that the BBC is taking on board the comments, criticisms and suggestions. I agree with some of the comments and disagree with others. It’s not easy trying to please everyone. In fact, it’s impossible.
I love the new BBC News and Sport sites, but I still feel so much more can be done. The new width will open up many possibilities which weren’t possible before.
The site needs to be more interactive and personal but it MUST NOT lose its simple, practical and easy to use design which has made it one the best websites in the world.
I hope the BBC continues to look at ways of improving the site and continues to read our comments.
As a Firefox user, I'm having difficulty reading the thin text. There is not much that can be done within Firefox to improve the readability. Although you can change the font and the size you can't modify the weight of the typeface.
To get round I've resorted to using 2 plug-ins, (Platypus and Greasemonkey) to change the appearance of the whole BBC site, forcing bold for all typefaces.
I feel that I should not have to do this and that I think you have overlooked the problems of users with eyesight difficulties in creating the new format.
I'm afraid I have to agree with most of post 18.
The old site was oddly cramped to one side of the screen, but the solution to that was to make the page so it used fluid widths to make more information available if it had it - not to put big white gaps around everything.
That would have also meant the site degraded nicely on smaller screens or people not viewing fullscreen - as it stands no matter what you end up with huge sections of the screen being empty white (not even boxed off in a different colour like the old site) to allow other bits to scroll down into space they really don't need.
The lack of any background shading makes it very hard to look around the screen for specific sections.
And seriously the site should never have launched with stuff as obvious as half the news ticker disappearing underneath another column on the iPhone, presumably because of the font sizes being specified in pixels. That's amatuerish.
Actually there are aspects I will certainly get used to: the new colours, bigger images, navigation bar and embedded media are all good.
On the other hand it is unacceptable to assume everyone wants or needs the new jumbo-sized fonts, and the clashing BBC logos look incredibly amateur. But the worse offence by far is actually decreasing the amount of information that can be seen at a glance.
Not cool.
Not web 2.0.
Not progress.
Sadly, this looks more like a "point-by-point justification" rather than a "point-by-point response".
I can understand that you might get a bit defensive when you have been barraged by comments by about one thousand people, most of whom are questioning your design decisions. Nevertheless when you've had a chance to calm down a bit, I hope that you will respond appropriately.
There does seem to be a massive majority consensus on the white space issue in particular - there is too much empty space and as a result visitors have to work harder to extract the information from your site. I hope that this is fixed soon.
To echo previous posters, there is a world of difference between screen resolution and window size. I (and, judging by the comments, the great majority of your viewers) may well have a screen width of 1024, but I do not want to have to run my browser window maximised simply to view the website!
Julia Whitney's response does not appear to address the very large number of concerns raised and seems to gloss over many of the complaints.
Reading the comments received it is clear that the great majority of people who replied have significant concerns about the new site design, including but not limited to the page width, the masthead, the excessive white space and the apparent reduction in actual news content on the pages. I'd also add to that that the font size is now too large.
Please address these concerns and problems by undoing some of these changes, rather than simply giving vague reassurances that things will be looked at at some stage in the future. I fear that your audience share will suffer otherwise.
What utter nonsense. The majority of comments were totally negative towards the change. You're making light of the user responses.
If you're actually bothering to take our comments on board, then you'll realise the old layout was much preferred.
Why? It's simple, because we prefer CONTENT AND ACCESSIBILITY OVER STYLE!
I'm interested to know who the users were in your "surveys, listening labs and usability tests". Were they regular users of the website or random people off the street?
Please give us an option to revert back to the old layout. It can't be too hard. If it is, give us the opportunity to submit the code (it would be very "Web 2.0" of you) - I'm sure we'd do a better job than your research and design team.
You may be interested in this blog post from Ben Gallop at the BBC Sports Editors Blog which discusses some of the feedback on the new look.
Wonderful! Simply wonderful! Bravo on a bold move to Web 2.0. The modular functionality, the accomodation of new screen resolution standards and the treatment of the type and content are absolutely fitting for World's most respected news provider.
Well Done.
I am not sure if you read the same set of comments as me. If so, you will have seen that the vast majority of people commenting were complaining about the amount of space between lines, the lack of content on the front page, and the general
Please remember that we, the licence fee payers, are bearing the cost of this. You do not receive a licence fee in order to compete and should not be concerned to compare the BBC News website to the likes of CNN and Sky.
It takes a certain kind of institutional arrogance to come up with a response couched in terms of "many people" and a "number" of users whilst ignoring the mass of opinion. Kindly do us the courtesy of listening and acknowleding when you get things wrong.
I think a lot of the problem is the Front Page layout. The pages with the stories actually do look a bit better, However, the centre column with the story should be a bit wider, and the right hand column a bit narrower (as its width is not used)
The Front Page is a different animal and needs to be much 'tighter' to allow a quick scan across the headlines, and have the full previous functionality. I think it is this
o v e r s t r e t c h e d a n d
r i d i c u l o u s l y s p a c e d
front page which was launched first, which has caused the backlash against the whole 'refresh'
Did any of you actually read all the feedback, or did you just discard the 80% that didn't agree with your website changes? Did you not notice that the site was running at below the normal number of users as people were deserting? And why can't you have the "old style" there as an alternative for UK users? At the very least you need to stop assuming that everyone uses a 1024 width screen! And I'm afraid I don't use places like Yahoo very often for the very same reasons that I don't like your site redesign. *Please* listen to the 80% instead of just the 20% who did like it and restore the site to something which isn't all about the triumph of arty-design over usability and content!
The BBC isn't listening to the overwhelming negative response to the re-design.
The negativity isn't from people unwilling to embrace change, it's from people unwilling to be foisted with a poorly-designed backwards step.
On usability, the design is just extremely poor.
Rather than write platitudes alleging that you're listening, you should try listening to what the public are telling you loud and clear: they want things changed, and this dog's dinner of a re-design sorted out quickly.
In the meantime, try restoring the highly functional old site as a stop gap measure.
Not exactly reassuring is it? How many complaints and comments on, broadly, three points does it take to get you to take some action?
The three points are:
1. Too much white space.
2. Text line gap too much.
3. Fixed width.
Seems to me that you are doing the usual BBC thing when criticized - burying your head in the sand, sucking your thumb and hoping that it will all go away by itself. That way you justify your job.
For once please admit that you are wrong and sort out the site before you loose more credibility.
BTW: Your blog posting system is broken - again! Been trying now for over an hour and getting Error 502 and the 'we are working on it' message. Mmmmm......
Sorry, but after two days of struggling to read this new look site I am giving up.
The scrolling to read tiny text or text that does not contrast well enough with the background has left me with a headache. I'm all for progress, but this is change for the sake of change and that attitude has never made for progress.
As for the video, if I want to watch moving pictures I will watch TV. It is highly annoying being tempted by a story only to find you get little more than a headline plus video. If you have to put video up please put up the text version too - unless you are going to subtitle every video.
"a fresher, more modern and open look" - I couldn't disagree more. I've read a fair few of yesterday's comments and I think that I am not the only person who feels this is a giant leap backwards.
I'll pop back and see how you deal with this issue, but I have already changed my news home page to one I can actually see and read.
I'm sorry, but this post is one of the most patronising pieces of corporate spin I've ever read.
You've received several hundred complaints about the new design, and the best response you can offer is "we'll continue to pay close attention to your feedback"? You have a huge amount of feedback, and the majority is negative. The only way in which I can comprehend your attitude is that you've taken the utterly naive decision that anyone not actively complaining is in full support.
You've made an "updated" site that uses outdated coding techniques and actively opposes user's attempts to fit it to their requirements, and your best response is "at least we're not as bad as our competition". You've not even made an attempt at an apology.
Frankly, the entire attitude you've shown so far has come across as arrogant and short-sighted.
You really, really need to stop using the 95% of users being at 1024px wide screens or more statistic as an excuse. It is staggering that you think this is acceptable.
You are admitting that by your own statistics you are cutting off 5% of your audience. Do that to a minority group, or a specific disability, which may infact account for less of a percentage - and imagine the uproar!
Even in this post you give absolutely no explanation for needing to increase the width beyond what was perfectly acceptable before. How exactly do you get "left behind" by having an 800px design? Your comparison to Yahoo and MSN is flawed - I have just visited both sites, set my browser to the minimum width before a horizontal scroll bar appears, and then visited news.bbc.co.uk. In all cases BBC then needed a horizontal scroll bar. This is absolutely awful - you aren't comparing to examples of brilliant web design here either.
As noted, the BBC news site is now completely unusable to people who either browse in a window (I suspect your 95% statistic does not include this) rather than full screen, or who use a mobile device such as the Asus EEE PC or iPhone/iPod Touch etc.
Pretending to address the point doesn't cut it - the site needs to at a minimum gracefully resize to lower resolutions, and at worst should support going back to allowing font size changes in the browser if need be (this currently breaks the BBC's own usability guidelines!).
Well, at least it's a relief to find that this is only the start of the process. But please, less of the (as one user above termed it) "points-of-view" speak. It's almost as condescending as the white space to content ratio on the new site.
You've reiterated your belief that most people have a minimum horizontal resolution of 1024, but you haven't addressed the question of whether you expect users to have their browser window maximized. The inference would seem to be yes, but looking around the office now, that's definitely not the case amongst my co-workers.
There is also something a movement back to smaller screens on machines such as the Asus Eee PC (800x480) and the OLPC XO-1, so now seems an odd time to enforce a higher, fixed width on users.
On the subject of the colour changes, I don't mind the lightness, but I find the lack of contrast between visited and not visited links makes identifying the difference quite difficult.
Some of your decisions are making it harder for people to navigate. Clicking in the BBC logo (top left) takes us back to the Homepage. I found it by trial and error but I’ve seen people get into (e.g.) news and then get trapped, unable to get back out. Links like that should be more clearly marked. They end up closing the browser to get out of it.
I see your introducing the new Explore button; labelling needs to make it clear what people do with it. (See below.)
The search box: please put “click and type what your looking for here” in it so people know what to do with it. And a lot of older people think they’re searching the web, not the BBC. Can the web option be default?
Just a comment; one thing I also notice a lot is that many people (older in particular) either don’t like or think-of scrolling. They only click on links in the visible part of a page when it first appears.
49% of the population don’t use the web regularly, if at all. You need to think of your parents and grandparents when you design. (I’m an ICT Trainer working predominantly with those in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I get to observe lots of people using your website.)
Sorry, but after two days of struggling to read this new look site I am giving up.
The scrolling to read text that does not contrast well enough with the background (or those bouts of incredibly small text, which also fails to contrast well with the background) has left me with a headache. I'm all for progress, but this is change for the sake of change and that attitude has never made for progress.
As for the video, if I want to watch moving pictures I will watch TV. It is highly annoying being tempted by a story only to find you get little more than a headline plus video. If you have to put video up please put up the text version too - unless you are going to subtitle every video.
"a fresher, more modern and open look" - I couldn't disagree more. I've read a fair few of yesterday's comments and I think that I am not the only person who feels this is a giant leap backwards. I think the people commenting that you have missed the point on screen width are correct. I currently have 3 windows open on my screen and two of them show me a full work area. One doesn't. I'll let you guess which one.
I'll pop back and see how you deal with this issue, but I have already changed my news home page to one I can actually see and read. News changes minute by minute - a redesign like this has forced me to look to alternate news sources for the first time since I started getting my news online. You are going to have to work hard to woo me back, I'm afraid.
A triumph of design over substance and fuctionality
For the last few years the BBC site has been my defacto source for news, sport and weather. It’s always been the first site visited in the morning and then regularly returned to throughout the day.
Today I’ve bookmarked Sky News and placed it above my BBC bookmark. The Sky site isn’t as good as the old BBC site but better than the new one.
I’m an owner of a web development company. Sometimes we develop the style for a new site and on other occasions we work with a clients design agency. When I attend a meeting that’s full of graduate trainees, the walls adorned with self-adhesive flipcharts and the project leader concludes running through the agenda with the words “but above all let’s have fun” I know that we’re destined to end up with a site like the new BBC one.
I may be wrong but I think this site has been designed by committee comprising young, inexperienced, business unaware kiddies with too much time on their hands, who have tried to cobble together some Web 2.0 (whatever that means) trinkets.
I can only conclude that the BBC employs the same management consultants as BA for Terminal 5.
Interesting responses to the 1000+ comments yesterday and the changes still seem to be receiving a lot of attention 31 so far today since I last refreshed.
Overall I'm still happy with the changes, but I still have a problem with the vertical white space, it really is too much for the size of type face that is used, particularly under the OTHER TOP STORIES, it does need to be adjusted. Of course this is what on-going development of these large sites are all about, you first have to make some changes to see how they are greated by the user base, focus groups can only give you some idea of a sites new design acceptance.
I must expand on one issue that seems to be raising many comments, that is the width of the page and how it displays on PC screens. I found the previous page far too narrow and always set my browser width wider to accommodate other news web sites (that were wider) that I visited during the day to save me widening it later on! Now I find if I bring up the BBC, CNN, SKY, ITV (and one or two Newspaper sites) on separate tabs in the browser, they all fit nicely in the same width.
Sure there are other issues, this will always be so with a new design, but for me the vertical white space is the main issue, reduce that slightly and it will look perfect, but may of course not meet everyone requirements.
the main problem i have with the redesign is that it doesn't make very good use of contrast.
the old site used to be quick to navigate because the contrast in different sizes/colours helped you to navigate across the page.
now the colours are all similar (and the same sized font)
an example of this are the links to news stories from different categories at the bottom of the page. the difference in indent is very little and the colour/font size are not that different to help distinguish the section heading which the user is looking for.
I don't know why so many people are finding fault with the new design. I think it is a vast improvement on the old layout, and is more legible and pleasant on the eyes to boot.
As a web developer, I am a bit disappointed that tables were used instead of a much more flexible CSS based approach, but this affects us users far less than you the provider by making the pages less readable for search engines and the like.
I don't know what the moaners are all complaining about at all. Most of their issues seem to be about not finding the content they are used to so easily. For me, I found that everything is pretty much where it used to be.
Keep up the good work and please don't dismiss CSS or the need for a liquid layout. It's not that hard :)
I don't know why so many people are finding fault with the new design. I think it is a vast improvement on the old layout, and is more legible and pleasant on the eyes to boot.
As a web developer, I am a bit disappointed that tables were used instead of a much more flexible CSS based approach, but this affects us users far less than you the provider by making the pages less readable for search engines and the like.
I don't know what the moaners are all complaining about at all. Most of their issues seem to be about not finding the content they are used to so easily. For me, I found that everything is pretty much where it used to be.
Keep up the good work and please don't dismiss CSS or the need for a liquid layout. It's not that hard :)
This is propostorous, how dare you make such awful changes. You are meant the improve the site NOT make it worse.
Some drunkern lunatic claims the website is too "busy" and so you decide to totally ruin what was one of the best website-layouts going. Well good job, if your aim was to annoy me then you have succeeded. If your aim was to improve the BBC News website than you have achieved only the most catastrophic failure in history.
Julia,
You might be a decent designer (although the evidence is hardly backs this up at the moment) but you're a very patronising writer.
I am afraid the 'explore the BBC' in the top masthead wont justify the space wasted to include it. It is possible to fit that and your branding into a single masthead/banner and allow more space for people to READ THE NEWS.
I elect to fire the whole research and design team!
As a license fee payer, that surely must be within my right?!
I have to agree with the comments that I've read about the new width of the site. My display is 3360x1050 and even I think the new design is too wide.
A main benefit of having a higher resolution display is that you can fit more things on it, but this is completely destroyed if those things keep getting bigger.
I wouldn't mind so much if there were a real benefit, for instance if increased width somehow translated into increased quality of journalism, but you seem to be taking up more space simply because you can. There can be no rational argument for increasing the size of something for the sole purpose of making it bigger.
There is far, far too much white space. I'd be much happier if there weren't such large gaps between each line of text.
Hi Adriaan (post 7),
In response to your comment;
Your "1 in 20" figure seems to be unjustified. People are more likely to complain about something than actually commend it.
The BBC website, including News, desperately needed an update, and I think we should be thankful that the website staff at the BBC are listening to our feedback, and also informing us about the changes.
New site look and feel sucks.. ! Bluntly said.
Very disappointing.
As many pointed out:
Too
much
White
space.
And 2 ltl content.
Page should be able to adjust to screen width of people's screen with some minimum width etc.
I like it, thanks BBC :)
a small note that the Gareth Jones comment you cite complains about the *vertical* scrolling, not the *horizontal*.
It really would be nice to have a techie response about tables, css etc. Maybe on the BBC Backstage blog or mailing list?
The old news site had an air of authority about it. This new design looks like something from Facebook or one of these new 'wonder sites' (you can tell I am not 'young' :) )...Horrible Horrible. As for having to scroll down..PLEASE remove this 'feature' asap. Sorry, but not an improvement as far as this reader is concerned.
I agree that the site needed a bit of update and a fresher look but you've made some fundamental changes that have had a very negative effect.
The biggest issue is the whitespace that means a huge amount of vertical scrolling is now required to view the same content that was previously visible with no scrolling at all. That was a key feature of your site as a news source - being able to see a wide range of headlines and stories in one place (ie, with minimal scrolling).
I can understand increasing the use of horizontal space by why mess with the vertical?
I think it's a real shame that you've lost such a valuable asset of your site. PLEASE reconsider?
Julia - have you read the comments? This is a terrible blog post - you seem just to be re-hashing your party line and haven't actually addressed many of the comments - one of the main ones being the ridiculous amount of vertical white space (the right hand column on most stories is twice the height of the story in the middle). If you've read the comments - please be honest (isn't that what blogs are about) and acknowledge what people are saying.
Redesign - not great.
Use of the BBC's blogs to engage with feedback and talk about this - even worse.
I have to agree with the comments that I've read about the new width of the site. My display is 3360x1050 and even I think the new design is too wide.
A main benefit of having a higher resolution display is that you can fit more things on it, but this is completely destroyed if those things keep getting bigger.
I wouldn't mind so much if there were a real benefit, for instance if increased width somehow translated into increased quality of journalism, but you seem to be taking up more space simply because you can. There can be no rational argument for increasing the size of something for the sole purpose of making it bigger.
The changes are a great improvement on an already excellent site; superb design - well done and thanks.
The only problem is the lack of quick links to the rest of the BBC site, especially radio. These used to be on the mast-head. I hope that when you get the new "Explore the BBC" menu fixed these links will return.
Thanks for a very useful and much used site.
Hello
I cannot believe I am writing this but I agree with almost all of the comments posted yesterday, and probably all of them today.
I am not saying the site looks awful, the white space is a bit much but that may be a case of getting used to.
What is more important to me is the way the site looks on smaller screens. I have an eeePC from work and an iPod Touch and you have made the BBC News website unusable on these devices - the iPod Touch more so, the kind of device which is more likely to get popular.
Considering the investment the BBC have made in devices such as this with the iPlayer did nobody think about these kinds of devices!?
Anyway, semi-rant over and I can only hope that the comments, largely constructive I believe, will be taken onboard.
Over the past few years the BBC has won first place in the annual Webbie awards for the best news site. This was an enormous achievement as the Webbies is an American event and nearly all the 'prizes' go to Americans. With the 'new-look' website I would not be in the least surprised if the BBC failed to repeat that success this year.
Aside from the fact that the embedded video doesn't work in Safari, I think the new layout is much better and anticipate more improvements to come
Brilliant site update, previous design did not sit well with other sites on the web and therefore looked dated.
Also it looked silly bieng left aligned and so small.
With all the additions to the site, such as the most read etc, it clearly looked cramped, anyone can see that.
OK its not perfect, but its far better than the last one - so which would I keep?
Well just because something is one way, doesnt mean it should stay that way, so logic tells me that the new one is the one to keep.
Earlier today, i was reading some of the many comments complaining about the new site and they were not happy with the 'really light unreadable grey text' so I thought I would go and see what makes this so 'unreadable'. It wasn't till Id finished reading a news article that I remembered why I had visited the news site, to read the unreadable (is that a BBC tagline?)
Anyway, great job, too many complainers in my mind.
Darren
I have to agree with the comments that I've read about the new width of the site. My display is 3360x1050 and even I think the new design is too wide.
A main benefit of having a higher resolution display is that you can fit more things on it, but this is completely destroyed if those things keep getting bigger.
I wouldn't mind so much if there were a real benefit, for instance if increased width somehow translated into increased quality of journalism, but you seem to be taking up more space simply because you can. There can be no rational argument for increasing the size of something for the sole purpose of making it bigger.
Good bit of flannel by the BBC there. I've been poking about with the code for the front page and it is appalling. It's a messy combination of tables, div layers and lists with no real thought as to planning, which is much of the reason why it fits together so badly IMO.
The suggestion that the site is less wide than, for example, CNN. This is in fact untrue.
Both sites are written with a 1024 pixel width in mind. It's just that CNN fill the space better rather than using unjustified text on the right which leaves massive gaps, or "room to breathe"
But you also fail to point out that all of the sites you mention have the navigation bar at the top of the page, not the left. This takes away around 300 pixels of width from the news, or means the window must be wider to accomodate it.
Apart from corporate idiocy there is no reason to replicate the black masthead throughout BBC.co.uk.
A black box just big enough for the BBC logo in the corner would have been a much better solution and would have enabled separate branding of the various sites whilst retaining that "corporate look".
(Note the "Magazine" page on the BBC news website and how well it (accidentally) fits together at the moment with the collision of old and new code.)
The line spacing is ridiculous as well but that has already been covered.
I'm sure everyone would be very interested to hear whether this site was ever rolled out to anyone as a "beta" like most sensible companies do (google, yahoo etc.) to try and avoid the catalogue failures you have here.
I assume somebody got paid quite a lot of money to "refresh" the BBC News website. Can I suggest the person responsible for Quality Assurance be sacked?
I'm gutted.
I just don't know what to do - or where to to turn.
Everytime I now hit the front page of BBC Sports - I just can't stick around.
I find it really, really difficult to try and stare at the screen and decipher what's going on in the world of sport.
I'm so upset - because I've suddenly realised how much I depended on BBC Sports for my news each and every day - up to 10 times a day.
Yet now...I just can't stomach it.
NewsNow, Sky Sports, The Times/Telegraph have all taken preference today - and I can't see that changing.
I can't believe the arrogance of 'some' web designers. They implement change for change's sake - too keep themselves busy and in a job. Not all...but some.
Furthermore, there are some huge egos out there - where the whole concept of the customer knowing better really rubs them up the wrong way!
There should have been a variety of screenshots on show months ago - so that 'loyal', 'die-hard' and every other type of user could have input and provide feedback.
Not occasional random 'user-groups' who go along for the £50 and the free booze.
You want the opinions of the die-hard users. And yet...we were never asked for our input.
Oh no...the BBC designers knew better.
The key to great marketing is to listen to your customers. To listen and to understand their wants and feelings. And then adjust your service/product offering accordingly.
But oh no...you guys know better than that.
You guys now it all!!!!!!
That's why there are so many positive feedback comments.
Once again...I'm gutted.
The BBC Homepage is an absolutely brilliant improvement from what it was originally.
The new sports and news homepages could do with some improvement, and perhaps you would take into account the following.
- On the BBC Homepage, on the top right there is a large section for putting a photo or illustration with four tabs underneath for different stories, and I think something like this on the news and sports pages would be an excellent addition.
- The BBC Homepage has a clock, the current news and sports site do not, and I think this would be a benefit also.
- Having video news and sport which opens in a new window is very impractical and old fashioned, with many sites now moving to a flash based video page with a selection of videos to choose from in a flash based client, like the one on Sky News. This makes it easier to view video and removes the need for WMP or Real player playback, and perhaps a chance to increase the bit rate on the video feeds from a maximum of 256kbps, which is very small in today's terms.
- The black bar at the top is out of character with the rest of the page, and the news and sports banners below could be merged into one bar easily, further reducing the space taken up by a currently large top bar.
- The columns currently look out of balance, especially the right column which looks too wide for the content it currently holds. Also, the left column is slightly wide for the links it contains.
I am sure you've probably already taken these points into account and will make the sports site a bigger and better source of information than any other site available on the internet, and I understand this is the first of many steps towards this.
Blimey, did Patricia Hewitt write your response or does being patronising whilst ignoring blatant facts come naturally to you?
Give us back the old pages. I have a sore finger from vertical-scrolling. The BBC doesn't need to go completely tabloid. The screen is a limited area so use it properly. Don't fill it with white space and large photos. We know what Alex Ferguson looks like. Give us facts not flab.
Newspapers, books, magazines and this very blob use black text on a white background - as do the most web sites.
Why? Because it is easy to read.
What does the BBC now go and do? Use grey on white on its news pages. Whose half-baked and over-paid idea was that?
You are turning people away because you are making it physically harder to read.
This really is a very shoddy way to go about things on such an important website.
I'm staggered.
Do other websites pay an awful lot more and grab all the best people or something?
You make NHS managers look competent!
I guess this forum is simply becoming an online voting system, and it may be somewhat telling that you didn't set up one of your voting panels on this issue. I hate to be negative, but here's my opinion:
1. You launched the site way too prematurely.
2. You appear to have a serious lack of web design skills on the team - as noted by many others, the table layout, the many coding errors, and the lack of even the semblance of an attempt to make a document that claims to be XHTML 1.0 Transitional actually compliant, is not very impressive. The css style sheet is just 13 lines, addressing just 5 attributes. Who wrote this stuff? Are you paying for this junk?
3. Purely on the design issue, the old site was perhaps a little cramped; as most commentators are saying, the new one has gone too far the other way. It needs to be tightened up somewhat. A major attraction of the old design was the compact presentation of lots of information. The increased space with the same amount of information would have been a good plan.
4. The page width is OK in my opinion, but obviously not for many others, and you can't fix that using antique html.
5. The masthead construction is very poor, and a total waste of space. It's not even visually appealing.
6. Recommendation: revert to the old site until you can find someone who knows how to design compliant and functional websites.
Thank you for re-iterating the ethos behind the redesign. However, all this has already been explained in several blog entries, and whilst acknowledgement of reader feedback is made, there appears little positive action.
The more I use the new pages, the less I appreciate the makeover, particularly as the font appears faint and is painful to the eyes because of its excessive spacing. As previously stated, I welcome the centre format but question the need for a complete redesign.
Surely it would have been preferable to have simply moved the original design to a centre layout rather than trying to fix something that wasn't broken?
This is an Arpil Fool's joke, right ?
I haven't used 1024 pixel screen width for years. My current monitor uses 1680px.
But my browser is still around 800-900 pixels wide, and so (like many other commenters) the new BBC site layout doesn't fit.
Julia - I don't think you've addressed the real comments and complaints that people have made. I glanced through most of the comments and noticed that vast majority of the people have disliked the new design. I think you should quantify the various issues that people have raised and address them accordingly. Frankly, your blog write up does little to address the real issues. Judging by the numer of comments, this new website has not received the desired feedback. Please reduce the amount of white space and add more content on the screen. The BBC News website had a perfect layout till the design time decided to be creative by copying the layout of other mediocre news sites.
You seem to be missing the point. An item by item discussion of the changes that you have made will not change things. The overwhelming feedback that you are getting is that is a retrograde step. Why not accept that the customer is right and go back to what you had before - and admit that you have got it badly wrong.
Dear Beeb,
Yes it looks cleaner. But afraid this is another vote gainst having a *fixed* wider aspect - its wilfully crippling what can be a much more user-controlled experience. I use various computers, browsers, different screen resolutions etc - NEVER use full-screen browser - and hate having to scroll sideways to read the pages. If we can't have resizable pages, how about 2 or 3 different style sheets, since there is clearly a significant number of users who would appreciate the flexibility.
All the people yesterday and today banging on about this being a move to "Web 2.0" couldn't do anything more striking to show they haven't got a clue what they're babbling about.
Web 2.0 is about the internet as a medium for collaboration and active participation - including wikis, blogs, social networking and user-produced content.
There is no more scope for this on the redesigned site than there was before. Just the same few blogs and more whitespace, scrolling and big useless black mastheads.
If you're going to use some cool techno-speak to make yourself look informed, do some research. Even reading Wikipedia's article on Web 2.0 would be a good start.
It's clear that this makeover was neither Web 2.0-oriented nor content-oriented - merely aesthetics-oriented. That's never a good move.
You seem to be missing the point. An item by item discussion of the changes that you have made will not change things. The overwhelming feedback that you are getting is that is a retrograde step. Why not accept that the customer is right and go back to what you had before - and admit that you have got it badly wrong. There is a simple test - add a button that allows people to select the old site - and just see how many people choose to do that (if they haven't already bookmarked Sky News as their home page).
Sorry but the site is rubbish, dumbed down content, sytle over substance, less than a good children's website. Too much white space, an enormous masthead which means you have to scroll all the time to see anything.
Even this blog has far too much wasted space.
By all means make changes but preferably for the better, this is a hcange too far
Yahoo had a wide and narrow option. MSN is 100% XHTML compliant.
If you could do both of these and get rid of the black header, and just have a light red bar below the news one with links to BBC.co.uk, Sport, and weather or something.
anyhow, good job otherwise.
Oh and thanks for fixing comments!
Love it in the main - a job well done!
Only minus point is the black bar at the top. That must be the space where the international adverts go.
But for UK visitors - can we lose it please?
I'm afraid I agree with most of the posts here - that this is a retrograde step taking what was a professional website back 5 years.
This is not an improvement and corporate Newspeak about "iteration" and "language" (page width!!) only make things worse.
Have to concur with the general consensus: too much vertical white space, too hard to quickly scan headlines which undermines the functionality.
Julia,
I agree with many others.YOU are a very patronising writer!!!!
"Several people" "many people" etc really makes us forget and you hope ignore all the inconvenienced writers who were incensed enough to complain.
Your responses also seems to have been slightly more selective with the snooty complimentary writers to try and help your pathetic attempts at defence!!
I am SOOOOOOOOO angry at BIG BROTHER dictating and then ignoring its customers. Go and stuff yourselves- I'm off to other providers.
The old site design was rather nice with quick access to lots of news article - sadly you've made the site design much worse and slightly less useable. You don't seem to have paid the slightest bit of attention to the complaints either. Please go and re-read all the comments and you will note that most of the problems that you've created can be easily fixed - make the site slightly less wide, tweak the spacing and fix the colour scheme to improve readability, and you will improve things greatly.
Combine the standard BBC bar with the news bar, i know its a new universal device for all of the BBC website but BBC News is a brand on its own so its the one area that can break with the convention. Your visitor stats probably show more people hit the news homepage than the bbc.co.uk homepage. Maybe also lessen the fade to white before the stripy globe graphic, so the header is a little bit stronger and the overall impression of the page is more weighty.
You are very close to having a much improved BBC News homepage, the first column of news categories is great and the longer ticker is much better. If you can decrease the spacing in the 'Other top stories' section and include more links and if you can decrease the spacing slightly between the other sections then it will be great. Three or four pixels less in spacing could do it.
I echo Nick H's sentiments (comment 78).
And I also agree with David Pothecary (comment 77); the magazine website does work out well - apart from the awful big banners.
I'm with all those who dislike all the blanks and gaps. I come to the site for information, not a scrolling exercise. The old site line spacing was fine. Am mystified how people can think that adding lots of nothing is an improvement.
And please dont go down the customisation by cookie route - the awful new BBC homepage is already frustrating enough - having to set it up again every time you use a different PC or have deleted the last cookie is extremely tedious - to have to do this for other pages on the site too would probably make me stop bothering trying to use what I used to think was an excellent website.
Sorry, but no thanks.
I'm sorry, but it still looks a bit of a mess on my browser (Firefox 2). The font for index pages is fine, but for content pages it is too large, and if I try and scale it down in the browser it only scales down the navigation area. The differing widths for index vs content pages are annoying. I preferred the old narrower format, I use my screen for more than just reading news. While it is indeed more readable, I feel this has been done at the expense of words per page, making the whole thing feel more dumbed down and tabloid, a worrying trend for BBC News.
I wouldn't mind the extra width as much if it meant more information was displayed on the screen. However, there's now less information, even on the wider page.
Please bring back the old style.
(and, yes, I'm worried that when people stop complaining, you'll interpret it as getting to like the new site. This is absolutely wrong!I'm not sure at this stage whether I'll come to put with the new style, or give up and go elsewhere for my news. Either way, the new design is in my eyes a complete failure. I really can't identify a single item in the new design which I consider to be an improvement.)
I'd like to reiterate my overwhelming disapproval of the new look. I almost didn't come to this site today - I was dreading it that much. Since I'm a news junkie I capitulated and was disappointed to still see this awful watered down version of BBC. I liked the old version and never thought it looked cramped!
Reading through the comments on the 'Recent Changes' article to find out whether mine made it up made me realise another bad change - only having one story under each regional section. I used to like to skim through all the headlines on the front page and then depending upon the time available look at all the ones that caught my eye. I could spend an hour doing this. Even if I had only half a minute to spare on the Internet I would load the BBC news front page to check the headlines and get an idea of what was going on.
Today, because of the look, I could barely bring myself to read one or two stories. I spent less than five minutes doing that. And I'm sure I'm missing out on some important news because if you don't put it on the front page I probably won't see it!
Please bring back the original amount of content on the news front page - and I'd be even happier if you added more! Less content = less useful = less used!
what a disappointment to come back after midnight GMT to find the April foolery is persisting :-b
the previous layout was by far the most usable news interface around. after two days the new one has managed to do that which I had never thought possible: to drive me away from the site.
I'd like to know why you didn't listen to those of us who said we run several applications simultaneously, and also have more than one window open on our screens at any one time? You need a fluid width design.
And while we're on the subject of design, please stop following the example of MP's by using family members as designers. You need professional designers, because your website now looks and feels amateurish.
I've tried now for two days, but I'm giving up. I can no longer have the BBC as my home page, and that is hugely disappointing!!
Further to my message yesterday ("white space and larger font = regression to childhood" & "King's New Clothes"), the BBC News website now takes up double the screen space it did before, and is not adding anything in content. This was a collosal waste of money. You guys, at the BBC, really are proving you can't be trusted with our money.
As a traveler I use the BBC news website a lot, but on smaller portable devices, the widening makes these much less usable. For some arguable gains for desktop users (personally i never use maximized browser windows) you have in effect significantly impacted travelers. Bad decision. PLEASE restore the site width, or provide a narrow alternative other than the awful text only version.
Good job of repeating the corporate line there and ignoring the actual issues.
Although a few have responded favourably, many of those claim themselves to be web designers. Maybe the problem is that you all only listen to each other, and not real users. After all, what do real users know about web site design?
As for citing CNN - please, is this a race for the bottom or what? Their's wasn't wonderful before they mad it even worse a few months ago, and now you are desperately trying to follow their lead.
If I want a fluffy cuddly and pretty web site, I'll visit Disney. Oddly enough though, I visit the BBC News for - shock horror! - news, and I never visit Disney. I don't expect to have to scroll right and left, up and down, just to see the headlines, nor have to make my browser's window larger just to satisfy some bizarre need to allow news to "breathe".
Simple. Concise. Clear. Those are what you should be aiming for, not these other fluffy attributes which seem to mean so much to web designers, and nothing at all to users.
Looking at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7325727.stm for example why have you set it up so that we get small text next to each image (firefox on vista) - I looks like the text is not in a P tag following the table for the image.
Please do not patronise us. The vast majority of comments posted are critical and you are just ignoring any suggestion that you should quite simply return to the original format.
In its new format the BBC news site can no longer be my Home Page which is a shame but I get the feeling you really don't care.
Hi, I like most of the improvements, but I think you could have gone a lot further with customisation and personalisation - maybe that's the next step...
However my major concern is that the type colours are, how should I put this, too sludgy! The use of 'off black' and 'off blue' just makes the page look somehow 'milky' and lacking definition. Particularly on the two LCD screens I use. It also seems to soften the text and make it harder to read.
Please consider going back to 'true black' and, dare I say it, 'true blue'...
I agree that the site needed a bit of update and a fresher look but you've made some fundamental changes that have had a very negative effect.
The biggest issue is the whitespace that means a huge amount of vertical scrolling is now required to view the same content that was previously visible with no scrolling at all. That was a key feature of your site as a news source - being able to see a wide range of headlines and stories in one place (ie, with minimal scrolling).
I can understand increasing the use of horizontal space by why mess with the vertical?
I think it's a real shame that you've lost such a valuable asset of your site. PLEASE reconsider?
Please, please, please someone at the technical department test the new site with the iPhone and fix everything! The pages do not render to the correct size, scrolling is awfully slow and the responsiveness of clicking on links makes me think the touch screen on my iphone is knackered.
It use to work wonderfully well and now my journey on the Metropolitan Line means I have to take out my mac and 3g card to pass the time as browsing on the iPhone is impossible!
Please fix it now!
Thanks for all the replies to my post!
A bit more detail about the width decision:
I've mentioned the 95% figure for 1024 resolution or higher. Add to that the fact that more than 50% of our users fall into that "higher" category. So more than 50% can use the new site without fully expanding their browser. And add to it the fact that this number keeps growing. These were key factors in our decision that now was the right time to change.
That said, some of you with higher resolutions like Dan (comment 61) have said that you still think its too wide, but others like Mike McNamara (comment 55) say it fits better with their experience with CNN, Sky, and ITV etc. Like with many decision we make, we've pleased some but not others.
As John A writes in comment 64 we know that people who are not pleased are much more likely to comment than those who are (but a word of thanks to those who *have* written to praise!).
So to get as accurate a sense as possible on what our audience thinks we've also done surveys, user testing, and listening labs and will continue to do so.
For those of you who mentioned flexible rather than fixed width, and concerns about the line spacing and the grey type - we'll take these themes into our next set of user testing and listening labs over the course of the next month and a half.
Thanks again for the comments thus far and keep 'em coming!
Julia Whitney (Head of Design & User Experience, Journalism, BBC FM&T).
In Firefox, some of the text appears in a smaller font. This seems to occur where there is a wrap-around graphic in the right side of the text column - just one paragraph, and not for all graphics.
The BBC News logo looks weird in both Firefox and IE7 - a faint white outline of the letters, with deep red fill - same colour as the background. And the red design on the right side of the BBC News title bar looks pixelated.
Too much white space, too much scrolling. Thank goodness the content is still as good as ever.
I quite like the look of the redesign as a whole, a bit more Apple, a bit less, well, 90s but a fixed width website? How very err retro.
Viewed full screen at a large resolution it looks poor. Lots of off white padding on either side, no more content.
i have a life.
calm down people - it is only a website.
Thanks for the continuous work on the site - it remains one of the best resources for news.
With regard to horizontal resolution, while I am sure most people do have a screen size of at least 1024x768, I would be surprised if most people kept their browser window maximized (particularly those who, because of the benefits of tabbed browsing, leave their browsers open all the time); however, unless the window is maximized, the site is too large on a 1024x768 screen.
I realise that given the complexity of the BBC News site, this probably isn't possible, but it has crossed my mind that it might be possible to design different stylesheets for the site, suited to different screen resolutions, for users to choose from.
Thanks for your efforts, either way!
I have a life too. I'd like to be able to get on with it instead of having to waste unnecessary time grappling with this new web site! Having had a bit more chance to use it, I would still rather you changed it back to how it was before. But if that isn't going to happen, I have one major recommendation to make. The site would be greatly improved for those of us who use 800 x 600 if the column of links on the left hand side was moved over to the right. That way, the main stories would be visible when the site is first accessed instead of me having to scroll over every time. Any chance of this please?
As many have said - there is far too much whitespace, yes its good to have a less cluttered site than the last, however there is far too much now. It looks a little 'dumbed' down in my opinion (rather like a childs book!)
While agreeing with all the other points raised here, I'm going to concentrate on the new masthead.
The "sneak preview" does not inspire confidence. It looks just the same, but with the "Explore" button. For a start, why does it need to be so tall? Why do the "Text only" and "Help" links need to be above the logo? If everything was on one line, it'd look much better. The current masthead (as seen at the top of this page) looks much smarter and is a far better use of space.
As for the "Explore the BBC" button, it looks like this will pop up using Javascript. Can I just request: please, please test this thoroughly with all current browsers. Don't assume everyone uses IE. There have been some issues with Firefox and the new layout, such as the text being very small in the first paragraph alongside a float, which suggests you aren't even testing with the second most popular browser.
Your clock is STILL running about four minutes early, can't believe you've kept it wrong for so long (weeks).
Site
feels
like
having
to
read
one
word
lines
and
drives
you
mad
What's the difference between a NEWSPAPER and a MAGAZINE? - You abviously don't seem to understand this from the mess you have made of your 'realignment of the user experience interface'[sic]
I go the the BBC News site for NEWS, not a 'pretty look' - Content over style. All you have done is to ruin my experience and waste my funding.
Just because I have 1024, doesn't mean YOU get it all. Why should I go FULL SCREEN just to read the news.
I have my taskbar down the side as it's much, much easier to use. - Try It.
What's wrong with auto sizing, sharp text and efficient use of real estate? I also use my PDA (640x480)for browsing... This s p a c e d o u t m e s s m a k e s i t W O R S E !
How about doing some 'real world' usability testing before you start redesigning?
With the amount of negative feedback, you should consider this change a FAILURE.
:-
why if you are using more horizontal space do you then still need to scroll more ? - as SPOCK would say it is just not logical.
Also its one thing to say you listen - but the implication from yours and Ben Gallops posts is that you will be changing nothing as a result of feedback from this site (apart from the ubiquitous "future development" line -
please name at least one thing that these posts will be prompting you to look at ?
However much we, the customers (and payers) complain, the BBC very rarely changes its mind - it spins and ignores until its critics give up. So don't hold your breath re screen width, scroll problems, dire white space etc. One size fits all now... and if you're out of that bracket, well, you could of course switch to another home/news page... as I shall.
Julia, people wouldn't have minded the increase width if you *done* something with it. Instead, on the story pages, you spread the same content over a greater width, and on the main page actually *reduced* the content!
I cannot believe you're using the excuse of "focus groups" to hide behind the fact you've got it wrong. You sound like a Tory politician from 1995! Have you seen one single comment in support of grey text? Can you find a single article on useit.com, A List Apart or 456 Berea Street that says you should use grey instead of black? Of course not.
Admit you got it wrong. You'll looke better to the world (and your bosses) for having the guts to do that, rather than pretend you're going to need six weeks to test using the same colour of text as the entire rest of the print and internet world uses.
It may be just me, but things look much better on the news front page this morning. White-space looks to be cut down to a much more sensible level and the font colour has darkened and therefore is much more readable.
Mastheads still need improvement - two BBC logos of different sizes is not good (as well as identity overkill!)
WHY USE TABLES FOR LAYOUT? That's my only real grumble.
I disagree with those that do not like whitespace and I think you should stick to your guns. Whitespace is there for a reason. Site designers have for too long been applying bad type online for far too long (and people have become accustomed to it) and your choice to use more whitespace is IMHO the way to go. I suggest the 'experts' have forgotten why it's used spend some time in print design (I'll be hammered for that).
I like the new customizable layout too - very much like Cameron Adams' Modular Layout (have the designers got "Web Standards Creativity" on the shelf?). If so, how about using the DOM to alter the layout on narrower screens? I leave that for the dev team to debate.
The clock is awesome and the new masthead is very nice.
Appreciated is the debate on fixed (1000px plus) or fluid - one battles with it each new design. Nice it would be to have a fluid layout but it's a hard thing to get right (use max-width so type length isn't too wide, then a 'ltie6.css' sheet with an expression hack) with so much going on so I suggest that the site being 'fixed wide' is the lesser of many evils (Chris #4). Screens were simply getting bigger but now they are getting smaller as the uptake of mobile devices increases. Delivery of alternative CSS via the DOM might be worth a go in the future.
A few suggestions if I may.
The site could do with visual identifiers for Tabbers (keyboard users) and perhaps the site could be adjusted so as not to break out of everything when increasing the text size.
Access Keys - I suggest using either the 'standard' access key recommendations (their use is much debated) as used by Public Service sites (S-Skip, 1-Home, 2-What's new, 3-sitemap, 4-search etc OR permit users to input their own (Like Clackmannan Council's site permits). Access keys won't work in some browsers and some even use them for internal functions (Thank goodness Firefox sorted out that mix up). If they are to be deployed, I suggest keeping them simple.
And why no visible 'Skip to content'? Why assume that only screen reader users make use of it?
In no way an audit, I'd like to remind the critics that it is a work in progress with great steps taken to date, so chill 'experts', spend more time listening to the user rather than marvel at one's own brilliance. Too many web designers do just that.
Well done Beeb, good job.
How come every other website I visit fits more or less neatly on my screen?
In response to Julia's update at 117, you say you've "done surveys" - but what questions did you ask. You really do have this fixation with *available* screen size - but did you actually ask the question: "at what width do you set your browser when viewing bbc.com?".
And *who* did you survey? "Our users" is rather vague. Surely, if you are going to cater to the needs of "many" instead of "all", you should engage with the many who make the effort to contribute an opinion rather than dismissing their critical voice as not representative.
You can spend your money however you like - I'm an overseas visitor, I don't pay your license fee, so it doesn't bother me. However, it also means I am in the habit of looking for news in other places. Until this week, I came regularly (three/four/five times a day) to your site because I could see all the headlines in one screen - and all your adverts.
If you want me to hang around (and see more of those adverts), you ought to be showing me headlines, lots of them, not big empty spaces and wider indexes.
Without intending to make a protest, I have found myself quite naturally taking my eyes off to news sites in Ireland, France and the US. Funnily enough, their adverts are tucked in beside the news rather than a big patch of white.
For what it's worth: I design websites, I refresh the look from time to time - I'm not opposed to change; I have a widescreen laptop that can be set to 1600px (which I think puts me in your 50% of the "higher" subset of the 95%). Guess what: I use W98/IE6 on a 14" CRT monitor for my news and information browsing because it works, and scrolling is not a problem because I have a great big real desktop to whizz my mouse around on.
The BBC's site navigation has always been of a standard to which everyone should aspire and now its design is up there for everyone to emulate. I love the use of white space because it absolutely improves readability and I cannot understand those who complain about the new width. Clearly they are using a crippled browser if it doesn't allow you to expand your window and eliminate horizontal scrolling.
Ignore the Grumpies who habitually populate fora as a means of working out their own psychological inadequacies.
Julia Whitney (Head of BBC Design & User Experience)
...has just summed up everything that is wrong about this BBC re-design.
She comments above...
"we know that people who are not pleased are much more likely to comment than those who are (but a word of thanks to those who *have* written to praise!)."
What about a word of thanks to all those people who have spent time writing-in criticising the new site. Why not thanks to them?
The reason they have written-in shows how much they care!!
You should be thanking 'everybody' for their input!
All feedback is absolutely invaluable - no matter whether it's negative or not.
In life you learn more from your mistakes than your victories.
You don't just take the sugar-coated remarks and congratulate yourselves.
These opinions that users have gone out of their way and spent precious time writing - are gold dust.
This comments reflect the wants, emotions and feelings of your very loyalist of users.
"This" is the true research.
"These comments" are worth 50 times the artificial research surveys, user testing, and listening labs that you guys run. Anyone worth their salt in marketing knows that these research tests mostly perform a function to justify what the team have already decided to run with. Results can be manipulated and moulded to suit.
No...if you want a true understanding as to how your users feel...you read these messageboards and blogs.
And, Julia, you should thank 'everyone' for their remarks. Not just the sugar-coated ones.
Julia
Who is this redesign trying to please? BBC executives? Web site designers? Advertisers? 'Cos it sure ain't designed to please the ordinary punters. Was it tested on real users or just on insiders and IT professionals?
After a couple of days I still prefer most of the old site layout to the new and still agree with the bulk of the critical comments.
Unlike some I won't be changing my home page away from BBC News just yet as I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt and give myself more time to get used to the new layout.
But if the site continues like this and you don't make most of the changes were all asking for (Unneccessary black banner, pale grey text, too much white, line spacing too great, etc.) I probably will find an alternative home page eventually.
I trust you are monitoring site useage carefully!
I know how these exercises suddenly turn everyone into back seat designers, and you've opened yourselves to thousands of 'I'm not a designer but what I reckon is...' posts, but there hasn't been this much negative reaction to British corporate design since the horrendous London 2012 logo fiasco (I'm still embarrassed!) Let that be a warning!
What is puzzling, however, is how the BBC News homepage does not follow the style of the (now much-improved) BBC.co.uk homepage. No grey shading, no rounded corners, no customization. Why is this? Isn't the new look supposed to strengthen and unify the branding of the BBC. The global masthead will help, but surely all it needs to do is change colour for each site: deep blue for BBC.co.uk, red for news, yellow for sport etc. And more visible content, please, don't throw away what made you great.
I'm not a designer but I reckon...
(PS I am a designer...)
Well get used to it, all new sites seem wierd at first, but then I didn't have any complaints about the previous site anyway. Just concerned about the lack of quick links to radio, weather, etc as typing requests in the search box is a tad tedious.
Julia, reading your response to people's feedback, one would think the split was 50-50, when in fact around 80-90 percent of the comments were negative. Why don't you face the facts? This change is a big blunder, reminiscent of New Coke back in the 1980s! The site was excellent the way it was. Be brave and responsive to your audience - admit your mistake, and go back to the previous design.
Julia said:
"A bit more detail about the width decision:
I've mentioned the 95% figure for 1024 resolution or higher. Add to that the fact that more than 50% of our users fall into that "higher" category. So more than 50% can use the new site without fully expanding their browser."
Eh??? I have 1024 resolution and I HAVE to fully expand the browser. I'd need to have higher than 1024 resolution in order to see the full width without fully expanding my browser.
The new design clearly suits people with mammoth resolution, but not the majority of us who use 1024 or lower!
I feel it's a bit simplistic (and verging on the patronising) to allude to a previous design change and infer that all the criticism will go away.
Change the look, fine, but hold on to editorial standards. Natasha Kaplinsky being pregnant is not a news story.
Trying again, got error message. In reply, Julia, to your comment #117, thanks a lot for nothing.
You say that those who are not pleased are more likely to comment than those who are, and that appears to be your justification for ignoring our comments. But you're making a big customer service mistake, because those who take the time to comment negatively actually care (and it's not easy to post here). Those who don't like the new look and don't care, have already left you. You need to pay attention to negative comments, it's simply not good enough to say that you'll "take these concerns into our next set of user testing and listening labs over the course of the next month and a half." I for one am not sticking around that long. Also, you do not need a "listening lab" (whatever that is) because we're telling you now: the site looks and feels amateurish, and you need flexible width.
I too like the new site - the width, the whitespace - the light colours, etc. Agree also that "more customisation" would be great, but realise its only early days.
As a developer, great work design/tech team. Also glad this wasn't another T5.
RE: Angela [comment #125]
The BBC Clock is based upon your computers' clock, so if the clock on your computer is wrong (which it, I guess therefore is), the clock on the BBC Website will also be wrong.
For instance, I'm in the USA (EST) and the clock displays 9:18. Whereas if it was GMT, the time would be displayed as 2:18.
Still Rubbish
Why oh why change a very good web site
A point already raised, but worth reiterating, as it is quite annoying:
"In Firefox, some of the text appears in a smaller font. This seems to occur where there is a wrap-around graphic in the right side of the text column - just one paragraph, and not for all graphics".
PLEASE give us an option on the home page to use the old layout, even if the new one remains as default... Should help to make things slightly better until the indeterminate time that you fix the problems noted here already.
Nick H & Susan sum up the current situation very well. Here's my take on things speaking as an ex-BBC News Online employee.
Firstly Julia's comments very much typify two key attributes I came across at the BBC:
1) Professional 'adequacy'
2) Arrogance
I cannot believe any conscientious, meticulous person who takes pride in their work and above all pride in the brand that they represent actually let these half-baked changes see the light of day. Even the most cursory of quality assurance checks would've highlighted the very many omissions and errors that hundreds of customers (yes -- we are paying customers) have pointed out.
If, as the BBC says, these are incremental changes then they should've been kept under wraps until some of the more fundamental problems which are affecting the page layout are addressed. Releasing the changes in this way and dismissing the invaluable and highly detailed technical feedback which they generated is damaging the website's reputation & reach permanently.
Regarding the arrogance: I was at the BBC during two major overhauls of the publishing systems behind BBC News & BBC Sport. As one would expect the changes generated lots of positive and negative responses amongst users. The typical BBC reaction to any negative comments was along the lines of "people don't like change and people always complain when things change no matter what.".
My real fear with this most recent 'site refresh' is that this is still very much the predominant mindset. What Julia and the rest of her colleagues must *never* fail to realise is that almost all the complaints I've read (and I've pretty much read every comment on both blogs) are *very* specific about the things that are wrong. These are not idle complainants these are your most loyal readers making very specific and detailed criticism of the changes. You *cannot* continue to dismiss any of these comments idly as you have twice already done so.
BBC FNM&T doesn't always know best. You have some excellent people and you have some average people. Listen to the professional designers, journalists, casual readers & news junkies that have commented on this blog. I'll wager that a lot of these people *do* know better than you.
Hooray Nick H (#135)
"These comments" are worth 50 times the artificial research surveys, user testing, and listening labs that you guys run. Anyone worth their salt in marketing knows that these research tests mostly perform a function to justify what the team have already decided to run with. Results can be manipulated and moulded to suit.
EX-ACT-LY
Overall a decent progression, but from a modern web design point of view: ditch the tables, CSS will solve all problems now and in the future across all browsers and platforms
Julia,
You are (perhaps deliberately) missing the point of most of the complaints. Many of us have wide enough browsers, but even with the required browser width, the site is still less practical than the previous layout.
There are still too few links to stories available on the main page, still too much white space, and it still takes a lot of scrolling to see what's going on, suitable browser or no.
The complaints are not superficial ones about the overall look, but practical ones about how we access our information.
What saddens me most about the redesigned news homepage is that something which was outstanding has been made ordinary.
I now find myself wondering whether the BBC is big enough to accept the feedback, admit the mistake, and reinstate the old layout until a genuine improvement can be made.
It'll be interesting to watch.
I wonder how many more complaints there would have been if POSTING A COMMENT actually worked all the.
For thee record, I dont like the new sports page either.
Still very disapointing, especially with the blogged response. You mention "an increasingly dissatisfying experience for a growing majority of users" whereas the last 2 days have shown an overwhelmingly bad experience for the vast majority of users.
The pats on the head and the "there there" comment will just not cut it, further action needs to be taken very soon, not just "over the next year."
Maybe its time that the Dept. of Design & User Experience should learn to listen to feedback, otherwise start looking for a new Head.
I like that you have begun to post more video but I haven't been able to view even one yet. I keep getting an error message saying the video is currently unavailable. Please either fix or take down.
I am also firmly in the "too much white space" side of things. I don't know where to look first. My eye is drawn to the white space (not the text or images) and nothing "pops" out to grab my attention anymore.
Personally, I think the changes were trying to do too much all at once.
I'm of the view that there are basically two changes in the new layout of BBC website, comapre to the old one. These are:
1. Increased width of the page
2. Increased Use of line and paragraph spacing between various sections of the index pages.
As far as changes related to point 1 are concerned I believe this provides greater flexibility in terms of more content in head lines. But excessive use of line and paragraph spacing actually has increased the scrolling, lessen the content on home page and has created the amture look
My Verdict: I still like the earlier version better, as it was more balanced and neat
It strikes me that this process of assessing user responses should have taken place BEFORE the full-on roll-out of the site.
Given that the site must be propogated from a dynamic source it is entirely possible to run both version side by side, in fact you could have run four or five easily.
That should have been done and an invitation extended to users to try these new layouts and comment THEN.
Instead you are now making users life more difficult for a few months while you assess the complaints.
I fear this is because you are simple being far too complacent. Had a site like Yahoo or Amazon done this they would have lost a lot of money through acting so unprofessionally. Of course we all know that this won't apply to the Beeb as you get our money regardless.
Sheer laziness from the developers in my opinion. And I AM experienced in this kind of changeover having implimented massive structural changes to large corporate intranets. I would be sacked for making flippant and buggy changes like this.
Also Fix this dammed blog software, i'm fed up with having to try 10 times to post a reply to these things.
Well, all you've managed to do is make unhappy customers irate with your justifications and gobbledygook. Not one of the point or complaints raised by your readers has been answered.
I'm afraid that some, like me, will now be reading the news from other sources. Readable, user-friendly sources. The BBC is no longer either of these. Such a shame.
I like the new design, overall. I think it feels fresh and clean. However, there are issues which I hope will be addressed.
One is the use of a fixed width - I know little about web design, but surely the BBC can figure out how to resize a page to fit the window?
The next is the masthead - as others have said, it looks like two mastheads, which is unnecessary. The BBC News banner is perfectly sufficient - in fact I (and others that I have spoken to) prefer the red to the varying other colours used across the BBC. (Including the god-awful home page, which I never use because I simply can't bear to look at it.)
I'm sure things will settle down as people get used to the redesign, but these two issues are currently turning people off and that is, as they say, a Bad Thing.
So this is an untested, unusable, incomplete, unreadable, crashing website that has had to go live in an attempt to justify the immense amounts of public money wasted on a spaced out team of website "experts" who like spaced out websites.
Time to cut the losses and abandon the project and restore the live version of the website that this monstrosity is attempting to replace.
Julia Whitney wrote:
"we know that people who are not pleased are much more likely to comment than those who are (but a word of thanks to those who *have* written to praise!)."
So you just ignore the complaints in the safe assumption that far more people haven't praised you!
I wonder how many more complaints there would have been if POSTING A COMMENT actually worked all the time.
For the record, and without reiterating what has been said hundreds of times (probably thought of millions of times), I don't like the new sports page either.
As KJ said "please return your front page to something that informs me of what is going on in the sporting world, not a 'lucky dip'
Julia wrote in comment 117:
"I've mentioned the 95% figure for 1024 resolution or higher. Add to that the fact that more than 50% of our users fall into that "higher" category. So more than 50% can use the new site without fully expanding their browser."
My boyfriend falls into the that "higher" category (he runs his screen 1280 pixels wide), but he is still miffed that he has to scroll horizontally to see everything on the BBC News website (he actually said, in a very annoying tone of voice: "They still haven't fixed the BBC News website."). This is because, like so many others, he does not run his browser window maximised. Like you clearly expect people to do.
One comment about width: I just wanted to point out that presumably not everybody has their full browser width available for browser. I usually have an RSS reader in a sidebar, but it could also be history, or bookmarks, or a variety of other tools. I therefore typically only have about 75% of my browser window for actual browsing. The new layout therefore doesn't work so well for me, with approximately 1/3 of the content requiring horizontal scrolling to view.
To be fair, the main article content fits, and to be fair I could close my sidebars when viewing the BBC. I just wanted to add my voice to those commenting that screen resolution isn't the sole determinant of screen estate.
Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. I have now removed the BBC web site from the favourites of all my machines at work, and from all my machines at home. I had come back to see if there had been an effective response and action from the BBC to reader feedback, and hopefully a move towards reintroducing a site which was a news site rather than a cartoon. No such luck !
When I first saw the new layout I wondered if I'd logged onto the CBeebies website. The large, pale and highly spaced text is extreemly patronising. The national IQ hasn't dropped 75 points overnight.
Please, if you're determined to change the website...don't.
In my opinion, the extra width off the size is a massive improvement. The design also looks more modern. However, please use the width to its full potential. Do not just make things more spaced out. The extra width brings so many possibilities which weren’t possible before.
The new design has so much potential. It is far from perfect at the moment and a huge amount of changes and improvements are required. It is important that the site becomes more personal and interactive while remaining, simple and easy to use.
This is in fact a brilliant redesign that incorporates many, many best practices in web page design and usability.
Stick to your guns. You've done a great job of refreshing your site and I'm enjoying it very much already!
In post 134 Tom James said:
"I cannot understand those who complain about the new width. Clearly they are using a crippled browser if it doesn't allow you to expand your window and eliminate horizontal scrolling. Ignore the Grumpies who habitually populate fora as a means of working out their own psychological inadequacies."
Tom you could be displaying your own ignorance and prejudice. Not ALL the complainers are using 'crippled browsers' and you have no way of knowing which of them do. Some CHOOSE not to expand their browser, and css caters for this user preference
Your assumption that those that disagree with you are 'psychologically inadequate Grumpies' gives an insight into your character that may not be true.
Do you work for the BBC?
PS I echo all the wishes for the Beeb to get its stuff together and install some decent blog posting software
I like the increased amount of white space, but I still have issues with the white space in the bottom half of the page.
I think it just looks a bit wonky, unprofessional and random. You could reduce the line spacing, and still have more space than there used to be. That's the only bit that I really dislike! (:
I for one am massively dissatisfied by the editors' responses here. They are focusing disproportionately on the small amount of praise for the aesthetics whilst ignoring the vast majority of users complaining about real issues with functionality and accessibility.
These is a serious matter:
1. Problems with disability access (e.g. comment by user with colour-blindness on the sports editor's blog)
2. Problems with mobile-device access
3. Most linked content on Sports page is video inaccessible to people outside the UK (and some within due to technical hiccups)
If all the focus groups and listening labs are so effective, why was something as obvious as a link to BBC Weather omitted at the start?
The website is funded by taxpayers' money - I encourage UK taxpayers dissatisfied with the response here to consider the following:
1. Official complaint through the BBC Complaints department
2. Complaints to OFCOM or BBC Trust
3. A short letter for publication to a national newspaper
4. A letter highlighting the fundamental access issues to MP
This blog is not working as a forum for discussing how public money is spent; we should use the other forums available to us.
Wow. The pompous delivery of some of the user feedback is just unbelievable, almost bordering on stereotype. If I were you, Julia, I'd instantly disregard everything uttered in sarcasm and conceit (comparisons to Terminal 5, pompous orders like "Sort it out immediately", etc... ) and just concentrate on the courteous constructive feedback, of which there is thankfully some.
Seems to me a good 50% of the posters need to learn some manners.
(Including one poster who sought to compare your response to the so-called smug answers from programme makers on Points of View... the irony of their own "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" tone clearly being lost on them... )
Oh well. Here's hoping you can filter through the reactionary rabble and pick up on some of the genuinely useful feedback.
The scrolling headlines at the top of the main page are distracting and an annoyance. They're like the teleprinter on Grandstand -- definitely last century. Does anyone actually read these headlines?
Perversely, despite changing everything else, that's the one thing you kept.
The use of 'white space' is relatively standard, however, I do not find the text contrast grey on white easy to read (black preferred). Most notably the size of things like "news" and "weather" are so small as to suggest all readers have to have 20/20 vision - I do not !
I am not suggesting you have to comply with the DDA but I would recommend a minimum easily readable text size with good contrast.
I am ambivalent about the white space, though it does feel like there is less on display. Not sure that this is good or bad!.
What I am experiencing is that the site is really slow now on my hand held device (iPod Touch).
Good to see the feedback. Keep it coming.
Others have pointed this out already, but just to back their voices.
Julia, comment 117, the increasingly patronising and dismissive nature of your posts is only making things worse.
It's SO generous of you to thank those people who've taken a cursory glance at the site and said "yeah, like it", but to entirely ignore those who have spent a considerable amount of time outlining the design errors. I've sent around 20 emails to your technical staff over the past two days, every time I find a page that isn't formatted correctly, and yet I haven't received a word of thanks.
Like many others, I have also seen comments which were intended to be helpful and friendly remarks treated as if they were merely the rantings of uninformed busybodies trying to drag down the BBC. Actually, I'm a huge fan both of the organisation and of the news/tech departments especially.
The redesign in itself wasn't enough to make me change my mind and stop using the website, but your attitude - and seemingly that of most of those working on the site - probably is.
If there was any advance notice of the change I must have missed it. I thought something must have gone wrong with my computer but after playing around for half an hour with the display and resolution settings and going back a couple of System Restores (or is it Systems Restore??!!) I realised that the strange images on my screen were for real. BBC News is no longer my home page and will not be again until the wishee-washee colours are removed and I am able to read everything from left to right without having to scroll or adjust the resolution to an unacceptable level.
I was pleased to see that some of the concerns have been addressed (unable to change font sizes, horrible league tables) over the course of today.
However it's still the case that the talk about "using" the extra space is misleading. The pages are wider (up to a point at least), but the new mastheads reduce the vertical dimension of the page by more than you've gained horizontally. And since much of that space is just that - space - your redesign has in fact reduced the amount of content. A problem presumably made worse for the growing number of people who use widescreen monitors.
Even your preview of the fully functional header looks twice as tall as it needs to be to fit in everything you show on it. To make a feeble analogy, you wouldn't insert 15 seconds of dead air between an announcer saying "this is the 6 o'clock News" and "from the BBC", so why do it here?
Hello,
Firstly, I've absolutely no doubt you must have a good understanding of your users' behaviour on your site, what their goals are, how long they stay on your site, how often they come, and so on. It's definitely going to be better than my understanding of those issues.
Secondly, it's mentioned on a number of the blogs that you've done extensive usability testing on the changes, which I'm sure you have.
Thirdly, people don't like change, and those who post on this blog are not necessarily representative - in fact they're probably not.
Having said all that, I'm a bit concerned at some of the reasons given above. People were commenting that the site was a bit "cluttered" and "busy". That alone is not a very good reason for making lots of other people scroll a lot more. Indeed, just by increasing the width (which seems uncontroversial) you would have realised a good deal more real estate without any additional scrolling.
It makes me wonder whether the BBC News and Sports websites aren't in many ways more like applications than many other websites. I'd guess that an enormous majority of your visitors are regular users, who visit repeatedly and have a strong association with the site. They probably don't seek for navigation because they've learnt where it is, and seek instead for specific content, or (due to the type of site) for any content that might be of interest.
By dividing the content they're seeking for across multiple vertical screens on each page, you must increase the amount of time it takes to seek to a particular item, and increase the amount of seek time between interesting stories for "browsers".
I'm interested to see how this progresses (and hopeful that you'll be as brave as everyone in this type of work should be, and learn from your users).
If you use Firefox or Opera you can easily "fix" the worst of the problems. I've put instructions on my blog:
http://dan100.blogspot.com
I am rather disappointed in Julia's dismissive attitude. She singles out for thanks those that like the site, but dismisses the huge majority of critical posts as somehow a minority in a larger silent majority that obviously think it's just tickety-boo. You appear to have made up your mind anyway. Just weather the storm of protests by whingers, and let's move on to the next exciting project.
Ms Whitney, is there any chance that you will make significant changes as a result of our comments? Or are we just wasting our time? Because your posts suggests that you see no need to take account of our views.
PS - who is your line manager in the Beeb please? I'd like to discuss your bonus with him or her.
Am I right in thinking that the line-spacing issue has been addressed? I checked the news and sports pages from work and they certainly seemed far more spaced out than they do now (though on a different computer with a lower resolution). All pages now seem much better laid out, on both IE and Firefox.
There is good advice in the feedback you have received, it is not necessary to look to other sources. Please do not ignore these cries from the heart (and please restore the "radio" tab etc asap!) Radio programmes continually refer to the BBC website - it makes sense for the website to enable easy access to BBC radio. Goodness knows there is plenty of room on the webpage now it is so spread out.
Well done! The BBC News website used to look like it was designed 10 years ago - it was small, cramped and boring. Now you've made it look much more modern and up to date.
The only thing I'd suggest is more customizability - that's what people want in the world of Web 2.0. Take a look at MSNBC's homepage - they've showed how customizability can work excellently for a news website.
Once again, well done. :)
Hi,
I have one 'complaint' with the new look - the absence in many pages of related web sites. These can be very interesting and informatative.
Can I ask why these seem to be ommited from most of the pages?
Regards
Julia, you're post at 117 was gratuitously insulting.
So what if "more than 50%" use resolutions higher than 1024? All you've just confessed to is not giving a toss what the "bit less than 50%" who are at 1024 or below think. By your own admission, they can't use the site properly unless they do things the way you tell them to. You think *dictating* how people should use a website is a good idea? I don't.
For the record, I wrote to BBC Online several years ago asking for more than 800x600... but I was hoping for CHOICE, not dictats. CSS and compliant XHTML would have given all of us the necessary choices, but instead you've gone with tired, old pre-1999 technologies to give us inflexibility, zero choice and a poor user experience. And you glibly dismiss that as 'change always causes complaints' or 'people who don't comment don't mind': talk about ignoring the actual issues!
And now you claim that you'll be doing further lab testing over the next six weeks with a view to implementing a fluid width design? Really?? You weren't even able to get the font colour right after Lord knows how much similar "testing" but magically expect to transition from ancient markup to the latest W3C-compliant stuff in just six weeks? Who are you kidding?!
I have three suggestions to rectify the situation. (1) Stop posting patronising, dismissive blog pieces that ooze arrogance and disdain; (2) Resign; (3) Before you close the door, put the site back to the way it was.
Sorry still don't like it, be brave and let us have a vote on it.
Wow yet another "Give us your ignorable feedback" on yet another pointless, badly implemented, fugly change to a part of the BBC on-line service.
I was relatively happy with the destruction of a functional home-page with a piece of junk widget obsessed, google wannabe pile of trash.
Its disturbing though when you make a hash of possibly the most used page on the whole of the BBC website, simply for the sake of it.
Undoubtedly for little other reason then to justify that daft tasteless yanks wage.
I don't like it. Sorry. It's just unusable for me now, with my 800x600 screen. This used to be among the best half-dozen sites on the internet but now it's useless.
Sure, it looks pretty. But that's not the prime reason why people come to the BBC's trusted news pages. Forget your user-experience buzzwords and your creative use of whitespace. Instead, go back to page 1 of your textbook and see where it says Content Is King.
Now start reading. From the beginning. Because for someone who's supposedly head of user experience, you clearly don't understand your users very well.
On the whole I link the new design. In this web 2.0 era it would be nice to be able to choose to switch between the 1024 pixel wide design and a 800 pixel wide design.
On the whole my biggest problem with the site is the same problem I had with the old design. The page is essentially 3 columns. Column 1 the menu is an improvement. Column 2 the story/section content is fine. Its the 3rd column that is the problem. Content in this column is just not strongly different to the rest of the page. Maybe a vertical dividing line or put the content in this column in a coloured box would help separate it from the pages main content.
I realise this is just phase 1 so am prepared to reserve full judgement until the whole process has been completed.
Now there are fewer new items each day, shorter write-ups, less information and less depth in each story.
I hate having to scroll back and forth and to struggle with type which isn't dark enough.
What a waste of a previously good website.
I'm an American who wants "in-depth news and analysis."
In all seriousness please pay no heed to all the negative comments.
Stick to your guns - you've made some great improvements. I'm sure you will tweak a few things and continue to add new features and functionality.
Some people - well actually quite a lot of people - are resistant to any kind of change, even change for the better.
Recently redesigned news sites like timesonline.co.uk, guardian.co.uk, time.com, msnbc.com, cnn.com have set a standard that the BBC has to keep up with.
Don't compromise your design vision for a bunch of stick-in-the-muds.
I'm sorry, the whole argument for this woeful new design is deeply flawed and poorly argued (to the point of now pretending 95% negative feedback does not exist) but what has really demonstrated the incompetence of you and your team in coming up with this format is your misguided remarks about browser width.
The following remark demonstrates to me that you are ill-qualified to be making strategic design decisions or seeking to justify them:
"95% of you have your screen resolution set to 1024 pixels wide or wider. And that number is growing every year."
Say what? The former may be true of your site analytics but to use historic changes to infer a continued growth in user screen resolution is forecasting that would be laughed out of secondary school. And yet this is the argument of the Head of Design and User Experience at the BBC.
It beggars belief. Surely with a title like that you should have some understanding of the changing trends in technology and the different ways in which people are reading the web. I'm staggered that you can simply declare that the percentage viewing in a higher resolution is growing every year. Does that not strike you for one minute as an unsustainable trend!? It's unbelievable.
2008 is the first year of truly portable web browsers (iPhone, Nokia N800, EEE PC) which are designed to share normal web content and access at wired speeds. We do not live in a world anymore where people wish to view mobile content or worse WAP. People are increasingly viewing the same content in a smaller footprint and that IS the trend of the next year, your statement is misguided and ill-judged.
No one is asking you to maintain a website that supports the smallest of these new web browsing tools, but in your position you should be aware of their growth and be able to assess the impact of your designs on the growing number of visitors who use gadgets such as this. Not only did you not do this but you've embarrassed yourself by making remarks that show you're blissfully unaware of these trends and issues you may cause. Head of User Experience indeed....
OK, it isn't quite so bad on a 24" widescreen monitor at 1920x1200 pixels.
But even then, it takes two scrolls with a standard wheel mouse to reach the bottom of the page.
One didn't have to scroll at all before.
On a 1024x768 monitor, it is all just too 'in-yr-face' and you can't see what on Earth is going on.
If you aren't going to change anything, why not close all these blog posts to comments and just carry on your merry way?
You certainly shouldn't post any more replies. They come across as very arrogant.
Since you don't actually have to listen to this feedback anyway, why bother pretending, when doing so reflects so badly on you?
I actually like the site - it feels a lot "cleaner" - but the main problem is that your designers have completely ignored systems that don't have Verdana installed as a font. Browsers on any Linux distribution without the Microsoft webfonts installed (i.e. never by default) will fail to find Verdana, and then will ask the system fontconfig for a suitable replacement because the CSS lists nothing else.
Unless you've either installed the MS webfonts, which are on semi-dodgy ground legally, or edited your .fonts.conf to have a fake Verdana mapping to the decent Linux sans-serif screen font of your choice (most of which actually look on the face of it similar to Verdana anyway) fontconfig will tell it to fall back to Linux's terrible Times implementation, which is wrong in every way for the site.
Please fix this by adding "sans-serif" as a fallback font family: it's only a one-liner, it won't affect anyone with Verdana installed and it'll make Linux and other free software users' experience of the site much better.
I'm sure others are complaining about this but the arguments for the width increase are flawed. Just because people have enough pixels to display the content doesn't mean they are browsing the web in a maximised window. Like most folk, I have multiple windows open so prefer bbc news to be narrower. Then of course are all those folk with the iphone/ipod touch for whom narrower is better.
The other user's comments about the width change "fits better with their experience with CNN, Sky, and ITV etc." is surely a bad thing for the bbc website. You want your website to stand out and not look like everyone else's bland homogenised web 2.0 site.
If you are looking for people to test your next "improvement" I'd happily participate to stop you doing something else to muck up your website.
I have to say the criticism of the new site refresh is on whole very rightly deserved.
Regardless of personal taste and whether or not the new page width or new white space is too much or too little, it still doesn't make up for the fact that the site as it displays at the moment is a very sloppy affair.
It seems that the decision was made to put the site live when you all must of known that it wasn't ready. In Firefox there are quite a few obvious rendering problems that really should of been fixed before release. The fact that the site was put live in its present form says a lot about the people responsible for this project.
As has been stated before, the normally compact BBC has now too white and too little content. Particularly egregious is the reduction of the Around the World section's news-by-continent from two stories to one. The whole point of going to BBC instead of the Herald Tribune or the New York Times was that one could get a succinct view of things happening the world over, not simply in the West, without going to a new page; this reduction seriously hurts the site, which was once my favorite for news.
What I don't understand about this BC News rebrand is how poorly it has been implemented. Unlike the new BBC homepage, which launched with a Beta version, BBC News did the old fashioned overnight redesign. The Beta page, as with the iPlayer beta, enabled users to change and comment. The people changing were likely to be the most interested in how the site looked and feeled. They could have told you that the extra 20 pixels depth to the new combined mastheads was a waste of space, and you could have had an opportuntity Julia to tweak and alter, without the need for highly expensive user panels listening labs (what are they?!) So I'd like please to understand why, given that change seems impossible, a beta version of the News website was not run in conjunction with the old, before the full roll out?
This website has been the primary source of reasonably objective news and point of view for the last 15 years for me (and I know millions of people around the world). I live in a country where most people think the media here is free and vibrant but most people do not know better.
Although the content is what I care about the most, I was stunned when I saw the new look website. Like many other people have mentioned, the wider page doesn't do anything; the extra space makes me feel I am back in elementary school. I go to the BBC website 5-10 times a day so the new look does bother me. It will not change my life but it does annoy me.
I request you to revert back to the older, more compact website.
Just wanted to add another comment about the small font next to an inline image - it happens on on Firefox, Safari and Opera all running on a Mac.
Other than that, I quite like the re-design.
For heaven's sake Julia, read all the feedback, forget your own agenda and fix this mess.
My god! Insult my eyes, give me RSI, now insult my intelligence too. More than enough comments telling you there are more than enough reasons to return to a professional news page, yet you write as if we were 5 year olds. I'm so tempted to go and buy a newspaper instead. When the figures show people don't want to "settle into it" maybe you'll finally hear the multitude, a worldwide one at that, again in unison, only this time it'll be "i told you so".
Your ostrich style responses beggar belief! Credibility mean anything?
Please, please, Julia, forget your own design agenda, read all the comments and fix this mess.
I actually quite like it, but then I browse with IE maximised on a display > than 1024. The old version only took up half a page width, so did waste space.
This new version is cleaner, and I like the fact that you have stopped using the small font for your links.
One big oversight > the new sports page has lost the link back to news in the left hand nav. There is no easy way to get back to the news homepage from sport. You risk users exiting at this point.
It seems that you are presenting "sport" as a seperate site rather than a sub section of news. I think that this will confuse, as most users see sport as a type of news.
Summary - add a link to news at the top of the LHN in sport please. Also why not have Sport as a link in the news left hand nav, it is a category of news after all.
Worth a read:
http://dan100.blogspot.com/2008/04/bbc-news-redesign-disaster.html
Anyone involved in looking after a website will recognise that major (as opposed to incremental) change tends to feel bad to users to begin with. It's only natural - if I use a site often, I have a mental imprint of how it looks and where to find things. If this changes, I feel lost and things aren't where I expect them. I'm not sure inviting comments on day 1 gives a realistic feel for whether the new design is 'right'. I suspect if you ask again in a couple of months, the responses will be more positive.
I am surprised that the BBC can produce such a poor website.
Some design issues are a matter of taste, but the use of fixed width based on screen resolution is just erroneous. Browser windows may not be full screen and then the horizontal scroll bar appears, any web professional will tell you this is a no no. Have yo never heard of fluid layout?
Even worse is that the site fails to comply with any web standards it fails w3c standards and fails even level 1 accesibility standards.
You know what, they have managed to make the low graphics version look the most presentable.
OK, the stories are in a funny order and some of the links are missing, but at least it is readable and you do not have to close all sidebars and run your browser full screen to read it without horizontal scrolling. (The arrogance of the designers in thinking that we will reset our systems to meet their misguided view of what is "right" - they should realise that the web is meant to be accessible - which means that designers should build in flexibility to cope with the range of different browsing setups.)
Mind you give them time and they will probably mess with the low graphics version as well. Oh well, there is always Google News.
Julia - first of all, thanks for putting your head up in the public's "firing line". Not many companies would be so interactive!
I'd like to point out an issue with the width of the new-look site. Yes it fits on a 1024x768 screen, but this doesn't make the page a convenient size. Let me explain:
I use 1920x1200, so width isn't an issue. What is an issue is that pretty much every other site I go to is narrower than the Beeb one. This means constant adjustment of my browser pane width every time I go back to the BBC news site. (I narrow my browser on other sites so that I don't 'waste' my desktop area by displaying blank space in the browser.
In addition, I used to be able to put two browser windows side-by-side and now they don't fit.
The changes you have made may, to some, be aesthetically better, but you've caused a great many of your loyal users *constant* irritation when using your site!
There have been no new comments for more than twelve hours on any of the blog posts -- are you holding them back now?
Julia - first of all, thanks for putting your head up in the public's "firing line". Not many companies would be so interactive!
I'd like to point out an issue with the width of the new-look site. Yes it fits on a 1024x768 screen, but this doesn't make the page a convenient size. Let me explain:
I use 1920x1200, so width isn't an issue. What is an issue is that pretty much every other site I go to is narrower than the Beeb one. This means constant adjustment of my browser pane width every time I go back to the BBC news site. (I narrow my browser on other sites so that I don't 'waste' my desktop area by displaying blank space in the browser).
In addition, I used to be able to put two browser windows side-by-side and now they don't fit if one of them is the Beeb site.
The changes you have made may - to some - be aesthetically better, but you've caused a great many of your loyal users *constant* irritation when using your site!
Fitting in less items in more space is not "better use of space", it's wasting space. And the line spacing negates the advantage of extra room.
50% of users might have "greater than 1024 pixels width", but most of them will only have slightly more (either 1200x800 laptop widescreens, or 1280x1024 desk monitors). This does mean the whole width isn't required, but there's nothing useful that can be done in the remaining width (the Vista sidebar would barely fit in). Previously the site looked great in half a screen.
The new Fisher-Price block look of the main BBC homepage can at least be semi-justified by the customisation it unlocks (though Facebook does it well without needing to make the blocks visible), but the News/Sport site layout is not customisable at all.
I'll be viewing at 75% zoom from now on. Or more likely reading Guardian Unlimited instead - an example of a redesign that did feel weird at first, but has settled in well. Their adverts take up less space than the ridiculous new banner (the features in the enhanced version you demonstrate could easily have fitted into the size of the old grey banner).
The response that the design is consevative compared to Sky and MySpace sums up the problem - of course it is conservative compared to them! That you even have to invite comparisons to those sites is a disgrace. They are at the wrong end of a wide spectrum.
Have just read a few comments ending with #160, which pretty much sums up my view.
To me the central issue is that Julia and her team have re-deisgned this from their own perspective, not the customers. As a user, you want to be able to navigate quickly and get the info you want. As soon as the site starts confusing you, you know it's poorly designed.
Sorry to be blunt but it seems that Julia has her head in the sand and has not done any proper testing / trials. Typical of corporate 'heads of' who wouldn't know a customer if they fell over one.
I agree with Katy (post #160) that the few glib positive comments are pretty meaningless - things such as 'I really like it, well done'. Rather listen to the specifics - loss of content, confusing / absence of categorisation.
One final comment. I mailed in to mention that the link to bbc home had gone. But I get told that it is still there - the 'BBC' logo, top left. But how the dickens am I supposed to know that is a link and not just a logo (unless I happen to hover over it)? Why not put "Go to BBC Home" like before.
Bad news is that this new page sucks. Just look at your feedback and accept that you got it wrong. Good news is you can rescue it. Just leave the design more or less like it is but (a) sort out the categorisation and (b) find a way of adding more links to more stories. Chances are all the budget has been spent by now though!
For those of you running Firefox or Opera, Dan G. has posted a temporary solution to many of the problems caused by the "refresh" here:
http://dan100.blogspot.com/2008/04/bbc-news-redesign-while-developers.html
This creates a local stylesheet that over-rides many of the design problems including the faint text and empty space.
I have a 1280x1024 monitor and the "refresh" forced me to endlessly scroll up and down to see the site. Thanks to the local style sheet Dan G. describes, I can see most of the site "above the fold" again!
Re. your post *117, I would suggest the comments posted on the Editors blog give you an accurate sense on what your audience thinks - we do not like the new website.
Your apparently dismissive attitude to the comprehensive and detailed feedback that so many people have taken the time to submit is quite remarkable.
Since the refresh, adjusting the text size in firefox on windows no longer adjusts the text size of the main article, only of the side bar. Not helpful! Especially unhelpful since the font on the articles seems to be displaying at about twice the size of fonts elsewhere on the website. Of course on my linux box, random paragraphs have been displaying at half size. Not impressed!
As per other comments, I'd also like to point out that many of us don't use the full screen width, or even the full browser width for browsing. I usually have a sidebar open with my history, bookmarks, or RSS feeds. Fortunately the main article usually fits within the remaining screen space, but approx one third the page including all the content on the right requires me to scroll.
I'm sorry but it's just AWFUL. I thought the new layout was an error within your system somewhere at first and kept refreshing the site in the hope that it would return to 'normal'. I do not have any technical expertise in web layout or design (do the folk who produced the new layout????) But I do know that the colours are wrong, the headline banners too deep, AND the page width is ridiculous. I have RSI and I can tell you it is a REAL PAIN to keep scrolling horizontally. I am clearly not alone in this, please do something about it.
One has to marvel at the ability of the BBC's website designers only to hear what they want to hear! What exactly is the point of inviting feedback if you neither listen to, not act on it?
Outrage! Fiasco! Shambles! Ah, the 'phone-in show effect' of the comments to the BBC Editors blogs continues.
You people insisting on having a poll should take on board some of the points made by Matthew Ingram...
-----
"Violent agreement is an unusual thing to see, in most cases. But disagreement is almost always emotional — even if it's couched in logic. And it's a strong emotion. People who disagree with something are motivated to pick up the phone and call into a show, or click the mouse and comment. People who agree are much more likely to just nod their head in agreement and get on with their day."
-----
It's the reason usability tests and listening labs are used rather than just relying on straw polls or the statistically distorted sample of opinion of a BBC blog. I suspect most of the people here calling for a poll just want their own views confirmed rather than an accurate measure of opinion. Yes feedback from places like this can be useful when points are backed up by reason rather than just spluttered in outrage. But it's only a small (and biased) part of the overall process.
Of course the people here giving highly emotive responses don't want to hear that!
The so-called response to the negative points raised shows breathtaking arrogance on the part of the BBC. It also smacks of a head in the sand attitude worthy of our present government. If you could show hard evidence that the majority of everyday users (not chinless wonders drooling over their Macs) welcome your redesign then I'm sure the detractors would cease. Can't see that happening though. For what it's worth I am a web designer and IT Administrator and the new site is woeful. It takes me much longer to find what I'm looking for and therefore, by definition, it is a failure. Try looking at usability rather than eye candy please. You don't seem to realise that this site has become so much a part of people's lives that any site refresh is critically important and should NEVER be rushed. How simple would it have been to create a one page mock-up of this design and post it so we could all vote and give feedback?
You mention user testing.
Could you please answer the key question asked by many users about the difficulty we have reading the new style font and pages.
Were any of the "testers" visually impaired?
Did you take account of their views?
Have you consulted with them again since go-live?
Could I join the panel to test your next web site?
Second point first. I have tried to make comments on this and one other blog about 3 hours ago. I still don't see them on here. Why not?
Second (or first), in case this point does somehow get on. IMHO there are 2 main things to get right - (1) usability and (2) aesthetics. Aesthetics is completely secondary, cos if the site doesn't 'work' then it doesn't matter how pretty it looks. In my view, the usability has deteriorated hugely due to (a) poorly categorised links and (b) reduced content. Further examniation seems to show other issues that other people have pointed out
The primary thing that the site has to achieve is to present relevant (up to the minute) content in a user friendly (well ordered) manner. And of course without making the user work too hard to navigate. It fails in this regard, point blank. Who really cares about the colours if it doesn't work properly?
Julia, you should be ashamed of yourself, especially as yor commnets clearly illustrate that you haven't taken the feedback on board. Your response hardly mentions content or structure, the key issues. That is the trouble when you put a marketing person in charge of a project like this. I agree that you would be sacked for this in most other companies.
"Breathtaking arrogance"?? Oh poppycock! It's nothing of the sort.
As someone who has penned his own criticism of aspects of the new design, it's pretty clear even to me that many here are more interested in knocking the BBC off their perch than in being genuinely constructive - a common feature of blog responses in general, but more vehement when it involves Auntie.
The polite civil tone of Julia and Steve (Herrmann) is in stark contrast to the gob-smacking arrogance on display in many people's comments here - name-calling, "demanding" this and that...
You don't have to fully agree with every aspect of the design (or work at the BBC) to recognise that these boards attract a disproportionate number of those people prone to emotive knocking of the Beeb. Frankly I've no idea how the editors manage to remain so civil when addressing us.
I notice some of our feedback has already been taken on board. Hardly the mark of arrogance.
Very simple solution to all this.
Simply put a voting poll on the front of the Sports page.
Do you like the new site 'Yes' or 'No'.
A simple click from everyone, both those that like and dislike the new site.
That will clear up the argument that it it is just the complainers who think it is all bad and who are writing in.
However, I very much doubt the BBC would have the balls to do this - as the results would show just how badly they have got this wrong. And they would hate to admit their mistakes.
Waht happenned to the name and location of the journalist posting the story?
I don't really like the new look main news page. I'm a mac user , primarily on firefox. I'm now seeing two vertical bands of grey , approx 5cm wide. either side of the text area. If the site cannot auto expand to fill my browsers dimensions , I think I'd prefer it to be left justified i.e always follows the left side of my browser. This Blog page does, but the news hoe seems to centre justify, and I think looks worse than the old page
I really feel for you guys. You're getting a lot of (IMHO) unjustified flak.
Well done for being bold. It's made my life as a web developer in a University (in web terms a traditionally conservative environment) a lot easier by pushing the boundaries. We've just launched a new design, fixed width, targeted for 1024 and thankfully haven't had anywhere near as much hatred as poor Auntie.
Have faith - you're doing the right thing.
I'm not against change as long as it's for the better but sadly the new site is really bad,please go back to the old site it was the worlds best news site now it look a bit Mickey mouse.
I generally like the page and I'm keen on the new look especially the new styling. When the last redesign people complained and now with the next people complain again. It just shows how people simply cannot deal with change especially when it is for the better. However I do have one small problem, the website appears to be very badly coded with 347 errors on the w3.org validator and some of them are ridiculous I quote "You may have neglected to close an element, or perhaps you meant to "self-close" an element, that is, ending it with "/>" instead of ">"."...Not impressive. Check out this for more.
The redesign is surprisingly incompetent and a major step backward. Navigation is more difficult, and the look is yesteryear and bland. Signs of a new( and less talented) new broom?
I'd like to know how much the BBC paid to have its site redesigned* with a font so feint that I can barely read it.
So, Julia, how much of our cash went on this disaster?
* - almost certainly by 20 year old web "designers" with 20/20 vision.
Certain aspects of the site design have improved, such as the embedding of video and audio into the webpage, very welcome. As are the larger pictures but i'd like to leave my feedback on a few issues which i'm not so keen on:
While I agree a lot with some of the comments and issues which were raised I feel that some of the solutions to the "problems" have been over engineered. For example, white space. I can see how the old page could have looked clustered but now it almost looks to bare and the items have been spaced too much. This results in not having the information you want visible without scrolling, another example is on the sport page the features and comments box is too low and you have to scroll down to see what it says. A particular feature i'd like to comment on is the amount of 'white space' between the menu and the content, it seems just too excessive.
One other thing which I don't think has been picked up on so much is the sub-headlines on the right side of the sport page - used to be grouped by sports so you could instantly see which news was relevant to your interests they are now all mixed and although the information is the same it is harder to digest.
I actually like the more spacious look and feel. But the new BBC banner across the top is just a waste of space.
My monitor is shorter than it is wide, and yet everyone - Windows, my browser, and now the BBC - wants to grab a slice from the top or bottom of the screen, leaving me with a long narrow letterbox for the actual content.
Top to bottom, I have:
a title bar for the browser
the address bar
the menu
tabbed navigation
a large black BBC banner
a large red BBC News banner
the date and time updated
Only then do I get some actual content, and then I lose another couple of sections at the bottom of the page for a status bar and the taskbar.
If I'm on the BBC News site rather than the main BBC home page, it's because I want the news. At the moment I'm lucky if 50% of my screen actually shows the news.
(And if I do a Search from this page, isn't it a good bet that I'm looking for News stories and not general BBC content ?)
If I want the rest of the BBC, I'm perfectly capable of going to www.bbc.co.uk . I don't need a whole banner taking up such a significant chunk of the screen.
As a regular BBC News web site user, I broadly welcome the changes. However the use of white space is excessive, especially in the vertical - too much vertical scrolling is now resulting in me ignoring stories lower down on a page. Additionally I prefer left (rather than centre) justification, while the colour contrast between a viewed page link and an unread one seems to be poorer.
How about letting users vote (cf in the Magazine section) on the white space issue - and maybe others? (Indeed more generally, I think an increased use of voting would encourage greater user interaction).
OK, there have obviously been some changes made to the site, possibly as a result of the feedback provided.
The spacing of stories in the bottom "Around the UK Now" and "Around the World Now" sections has been decreased, making it look a lot less lost, and the menu items on the left now work as expected (ie. you can click anywhere in the grey part that changes colour, rather than just on the text).
However, this appears to have come at a price - the famous 347 validation errors have _increased_ to 350 (as counted by the W3C checker at 10:00, 4th April).
You mentioned that the top navigation bar isn't finished. If this is such a critical piece of the design, why launch with it unfinished? There doesn't appear to be any reason for the rushed launch.
I appreciate you're currently sorting out teething problems with the new page, I'll still state my gripes though: I've now switched the radio station I listen to through my computer simply because the easy link from the top of the news website has gone - should it reappear I'll happily switch back to bbc. Also, the only way to get to "where I live" seems to be to stumble upon a local news story with the old style page layout.
Credit where credit's due, a lot of the vertical white space has gone, the 'more top stories' links are spaced how they used to be, the left-hand column is less of a jumble and the contrast between used and unused links seems a lot better. Although the latter may just be because I spent five minutes adjusting my monitor settings, something I only felt the need to do because the new BBC News site was so awkward to read.
Hopefully the "arrogance" of the designers is just an unwillingness to openly admit that they made a mess of the redesign and the problems will continue to be quietly fixed. Can we now have more links under each of the 'around the uk' and 'around the world' headings please? Yes, it will bring back some of the vertical scrolling, but there will be something worth scrolling down for.
What really amazes me is how you can put all those resources into how the website looks, but still don't seem to have been able to iron out the bugs in these blog pages that mean that posting comments more often than not doesn't work.
Surely getting the site to work is more important that what it looks like?
(Failed to post 3 times, trying for 4th time...)
Am I being censored?
I have attempted to put something on here several times in the past 2 days and none have appeared as far as I can see.
Do I have to say that this amateurish new look BBC website is wonderful for this to work??
A few further things occur beyond my previous remark.
1) How did such a half-finished pre-beta site redesign get put fully live? I'd have been sacked for doing so.
2) How can a vast public org such as the beeb undergo a redesign and not end up with standards compliant design - valid structural markup, css for layout etc.
3) Further to that - how can such a company, who are always on about the 'mobile' market, cripple their site on every hand-held browser out there - nokia tablets, iphone etc. which are all at 800 or less wide
4) 3+2 = If you had done this in such a way as 90% of reputable dev houses out there these days (including porn!) you could have had a flexible width, with accessibility adjustable fonts and classes, scaling to whatever screen size.
5) My final conclusion in these is the primary focus was a reshuffle to place the advertisements in a more obtrusive place for foreign viewers and ex-pats (me!)
P.S. Thankfully most sanity seems to have been restored for now. Please God do not let that awful looking navigation widget go live in place of the existing tabs. Why give use 2 motions/clicks to do what takes one now?
Thanks for listening.
S Maxx.
P.P.S. A working comments system, even with your volume of visitors, should be little more than a couple of servers and a few hundred lines of code. How is it that it's near impossible to post? (and you still get all these diatribes!!)
Well, I've read the replies from the BBC, and they do not address type darkness and readability.
Specifically:
--Even at maximum size the type is thin and reedy, with too much whitespace; the NY Times website did something comparable recently, but yours is even worse.
--The blue type is especially difficult to read.
--And the vertical spread means that one can't quickly glance at the page and have a sense of what's changed since the last glance.
For these reasons, I am looking for a different webpage to keep open as a source of quick daily information. Unfortunately, as I have long valued the BBC.
Martin wrote "PLEASE give us an option on the home page to use the old layout, even if the new one remains as default... Should help to make things slightly better until the indeterminate time that you fix the problems noted here already."
Now THAT is a good idea. It will also provide statistics on what is preferred.
My laptop has a 1024 screen, and with a Favorites sidebar I can't see all the site. Although some time in print design is useful, websites are not print.
I might put up with vertical scrolling, although there's far more of that than there used to be. I won't put up with horizontal scrolling. I'll find another news site which doesn't make it necessary.
The whole redesign has been badly thought out and is change for the sake of it ["We thought it was about time we refreshed the way it looks"]. And all that will happen with all these comments is that we'll be patted on the head and told to run along and play while you look into it during the coming months. Nothing substantive will change because you've already made up your mind.
Bad, bad, bad.
[Sixth time lucky with this post]
Please please please try this new site on an iPod Touch - it's practically unusable now. As my favourite website I am being forced by this change to use other news websites - New York Times is now my preferred news website and I now avoid news.bbc.co.uk.
Sad.
The website feels like reading through a looking-glass, it's terrible! Please provide a link to the old layout.
Having read Julia Whitney's brief analysis of readers' comments, I can conclude that it's largely spin. Of over 1500 I have read (before some reason posting became nigh impossible) more than 80% were negative and highlighted some serious issues with the new design. Yes, it looks fresher at first sight but problems with accessibility, usability and flexibility soon become apparent, of which the most blatant seem to be a) pointless wide double masthead b) no tabs to related BBC sites c) far too much white space d) line spacing causing unnecessary scrolling e) weak grey typeface makes it look airy-fairy and difficult to read e) non-adjustable width not suited to all browser settings f) visualization issues with PDA's and other such devices.
But he damage done by the new approach is greater than the sum of its parts. You've thrown away the impact, immediacy and urgency of the design in favour of a vapid look quite unsuited to, what is to many, THE major serious news and information website on the internet. That is an immense patrimony to put at risk! Why on earth didn't you offer the new design as an alternative, switchable beta version to test the waters, as did Yahoo with their new Mail?
I'm sorry, but you've already done damage to the BBC's reputation and if you don't take on board your users' comments you're sure to do far, far more.
D i f f i c u l t t o r e a d.
D u m b l i n e s p a c i n g.
H a v e t o s c r o l l a l l t h e
t i m e
H o w o n e a r t h s u c h a p i g ' s e a r c o u l d b e m a d e i s b e y o n d m e.
Please do not "take on board" what people are saying DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. We are past BBC corporate speak which tends to work well in the BBC but less so outside! We are looking for alternative news sites!
Why oh Why didn't you make the new site inherently accessible and meet the WAI standards? As a Web designer is surprises me that an organization like the BBC decided to make Accessibility an option and not a simple factor of their site! Making a site WAI compliant is purely an issue of good web design practice and should be implemented by the Beeb by default.
Are you able to make the "Related BBC sites" links on the news pages styled in their destination site's logo? For instance, I'm looking for the BBC Sport or BBC Weather - those pages have a yellow or red logo respectively. Could those be shown to make the links stand out more? At the moment they are really nestled in amongst the others.
To Peter W at 207 – I was half expecting someone to comment as you did.
No I do not work for the BBC, nor have I ever done so. Nor do I have any affiliation other than paying my licence fee.
Perhaps I should ask all those attacking the BBC if they work for Sky?
I've noticed it's a common tactic on here to question the authenticity of anyone who dares to defend the BBC. Since it's so obviously speculative, it comes across as little more than a cheap way to discredit what is being said rather than tackling it on merit.
Yes I have read Julia's remarks - and at the time of writing, all subsequent posts. Again, I could question whether many of those accusing her of arrogance (or failing to acknowledge the arrogance of many of 'us lot') have done so.
There was no need for you to tell me that there were constructive comments and criticisms here, as I've already acknowledged that myself, and wouldn't dispute it one bit.
Would I rather "everyone just accept the changes even though they make a less pleasurable browsing experience"? No I emphatically would not, and the fact that you feel it necessary to ask the question rather reveals the hidden assumption (not to mention lack of reading) on your part.
Criticism = fine.
Rudeness = not fine.
It's really not that hard to grasp, is it?
"Poppycock", to me, is refusing to acknowledge the following:
1) the arrogance on display by many (but certainly not all) critical posters on here.
2) the statistical bias of people posting to a blog like this.
3) that flagging up the obnoxious pompous approach of many posters does not exclude criticising the BBC, let alone suggest that the author works for them.
I have offered up a great deal of criticism to the BBC over the years and still do. But that does not mean I will just blithely accept everything that's thrown at them as legitimate or reasonable.
My apologies if that sits at odds with some people's tribal 'you're either with us or you're with the BBC' approach.
We know it's rubbish, *they* know it's rubbish, but they can't admit it on a public blog, otherwise there'd be heads needing to roll (theirs).
However, the reputational damage to the BBC as a whole is already done. Very, very sad.
Hilarious! I read through the comments about the new so called "refresh" ( Yeurrgh!) and there were lots. At least 90% were not favourable and people were clearly angry that a perfectly good site had been "refreshed" by web designers who aren`t interested in News or BBC users. Yet your response dishonestly tries to give the impression that, on balance most people liked it but had the odd gripe, which you are addressing. Such spin and dishonesty lower your credibility still further.
Okay, but why isn't the site valid html? More prosaically: why aren't paragraph tags closed? This basic error, which is responsible for the strange text size in Firefox, took me five minutes to find, but has escaped a whole team of developers at the BBC.
Your site is still painful to read.
It might be worth you taking a look at your own (at least the BBC's) Standards and Guidelines and implement the ones you have ignored.
In case you don't know, you can find them here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/newmedia/accessibility/
It's not screen width that matters, it's browser window width! Check that and I bet you'll find a lot fewer people using your magical 1024 pixels.
A good design would use extra width if the reader made it available, but would not insist on having that extra width. In this, the new design fails.
When it comes to readability, there only has to be enough white space. Beyond that, increasing the font size is much more effective. The new design fails here too. It has gone way past the point at which more white space increases readability.
(I use screens with widths between 1280 and 1680, depending, but have my main browser windows no more than about 850 pixels wide.)
i don't actually know of anyone who dislikes the new design outside the moaners on this blogs. And I think Angela's comment (125) on the clock being wrong sums up why most of these posters should be disregarded as pretty uninformed.
Ahhhhhhhh! Where has my radio links gone!!?!?!
BBC = British BROADCASTING Company I believe, so how come I can't find the broadcasts!!!
Finally after three awkward clicks which required lateral thinking I finally managed to find the radio.
Come on BBC! This is stupid! All decent websites make navigation a priority then get the aesthetics sorted...
Fix it please!
Likewise - couldn't find RADIO easily let alone LISTEN AGAIN.
C'mon guys, big re-think needed.
Customisation? Excellent idea - first option I'd like is "Go back to the old BBC News website mode"
I still can't get over the grey text. Is this some sort of joke? Who benefits from it being grey? Who is the winner in this reshuffle? People training their eye-muscles for some future olympic event? Please change it back to black, for everyone's sake.
On the one hand the BBC et al are telling us that our perfectly good TV picture is sub-standard and that we need High Definition, and on the other they are making perfectly good web pages objectively more difficult to read..
The BBC News website really was the among the most professional and very best pages on the whole internet. I recognise that this was achieved by various stages of evolution - but the latest redesign is completely baffling.
Haven't been back to the BBC news site for a week or so, and now that i have i find an unbelievably conceited arrogance shown by those who claim to "take on board" and "listen".
Having previously been a several visits a day type, kept well informed, quickly and easily, i now find i'm visiting other sites that i previously considered vastly inferior and finding them to contain far better "at a glance" content. Albeit still not as well as the previous BBC site, but so much better than the current one.
And i don't have to supersize my browser to read them.
All in all, i don't think i'll be using the BBC site anymore as it is just too much like hard work, which is a shame but i'm sure i shall be blissful in my newfound ignorance.
Oh, and the content may not be up to much, but even the Sun can get a webpage to work properly. Or is it that they actually "listen" i wonder??
Feedback on the BBC News website:
You mention fitting as much info on the screen as poss and not wasting space - BUT -
What about that big thick black banner you have across the top of the page -
what is the need for that, Really, that's the biggest noticeable change and i dont like it...
just more scrolling down the page because actually "You can now fit even LESS on the page".
You have Defeated the object.
I always read BBC news at lunchtime - I think it's the best News website for World news -
just that banner, it's annoying! Wont put me off returning tho' Bye
Having made comments about the BBC Sport website and reading others about this and the News site, have you actually bothered to take any notice at all. Everyone complains about the double headings at the top of the pages on the new and sport sites. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make them one bar, it will straight away bring more of the page into the reading area. I love the BBC front page but the rest of your site has just been ruined. Sort it Out.......
It is terrible on a sub-notebook, but you are too arrogant to event read this post, never mind fix the issue
PLEASE PLEASE get rid of this double header. I know I am on the BBC website so there is no need to tell me twice!!! I als dislike the new style, very cold looking I think. Don't suppose any point of writing this anyway, as 1 it won't be printed and 2 you won't listen to me and the majority! Big rethink is needed