BBC News: a single web solution for everyone

Simplistic interface makes navigation near impossible, text being replace by video, that I have neither the time, inclination or opportunity to watch. Many options to share or see what others like - Why on earth would I want to do that?
It is self evident that the web designers are very pleased with themselves. But I for one am not impressed. I have already removed the mobile version from the device that I was foolish enough to update.
One reason why I WAS using the BBC app was that it did not subscribe to the latest fads.

"as we switch to a fully responsive website"

Does this mean I can chose how much or little of my screen is wasted having huge white panels down each side? Will it fully respond to my preferences?

Does it mean I can choose to use the width to avoid the scrolling? Will it fully respond to my preferences?

"we have been working towards having a single solution that works across all devices"

How about you getting working properly on one first? (see above)

You (frequently) mention to 60% of users you are getting from mobile or tablet. Presumably the other 40% are "computers" (i.e. laptop or desktop). If the 60% are roughly evenly split (i.e. 30% + 30%) then why are you pandering to the 30% and yet (seemingly) disreagrding the 40%?

"we’re also about to start using a new topic driven content management system called VIVO"

I couldn't care less about what INTERNAL system you use, where it's come from, how clever it is, what it's cost or waht it's called. The EXTERNAL output is what matters not how you produce it.

DMI anyone?

" a number of enhancements have been pushed live"

You couldn't have (inadvertenly) chosen a more appropriate word: pushed.

It's a shame you didn't use "offered" or "made available" - but that's not what you do. Next time why be honest and use the word "forced" or "foisted" or even "rammed"?

8/10 people I know all thought the new design was worse than the old.
Some liked the new - most didn't

All of them filled in the survey.

So either you don't read the survey, you don't care what people think or all the people I know are unrepresentative of the general public who do fill out the survery.

The new site is absolute rubbish. It is far to bright and not responsive. Why should everyone suffer for the sake of those who use tablets and phones.

I will no longer be using BBC news website for news.

What is the point of any survey or chance to comment when all users will be FORCED to use the new site.

Just for the record, I find the new site to be terrible to use, too much white space and big font's but it doesn't matter what I think because the site designers will be sitting around knitting their dinners and undertaking free form dance in their minimalistic offices with Guardian papers strewn around the floor.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! This new version of the website is a terrible waste of screen real estate - wasted blank white and grey screen space EVERYWHERE. It is too bright and not clear to see the separation between stories on the homepage - it actually HURTS my eyes!
My main complaint it you can see far fewer stories in any given area of the screen than the old version and not enough contrast between story 'blocks' on the homepage. Fundamentally, there is NOT ENOUGH ACTUAL NEWS VISIBLE - just big bright white space with dates and times which could easily be massively shrunk into smaller areas so more news is visible in a given area with even the most basic of web design kudos. Overall a Big step backwards.
The BBC news app is terrible too now - I'm not sure which is worst the new desktop website or the app, both waste screen real estate to a ridiculous extent (users just want to see lots of content without having to scroll around) - what a saddening waste of TV license fees.

The website and App have gone the same way in design, so what's being said on the App Store applies to both.
It's currently got 2*s and likely to drop further. The big ugly messy childish look is across the board. That's where the BBC have gone wrong. I RARELY ever looked at the website personally, it never did look organised, and now it looks even worse, and isn't fit for purpose. On iPad its dreadful, a waste of page space and unusable on phones.
Haven't got time or inclination to wade through that lot, like thousands of people say...and this quote from blog exemplifies the reason people don't like it...
".....much richer experiences including video, audio and embedded social media posts."

If they want to mess with website down that road, don't care personally, don't use anyway, because that's what BBC News App was for, (well V2 was), because it gave straightforward NEWS in an intuitive format, and for that reason, the App should have retained its integrity.

One shoe DOESNT FIT ALL like the BBC thinks. The fact the Apps gone from nearly 5* to 2 is proof.

Very disappointed. Every day the pop-up message would come up asking if I wanted to look at a new design and I could say NO! I have NO interest in a new design and now find out it is being foisted on us, just as Google and others have done. Shame on BBC! While I do adhere to the "if it ain't broke..." adage, I realize cost savings are important BUT the new layout is simply insulting.

I waited to comment on the new BBC News page until I had used it a bit to make sure I wasn't just rejecting change because I didn't take time to learn a new site. But the verdict is now in: this redesign is horrible. Headlines are clumped together in little tribes and scattered in an asymmetric diaspora across the page. No coherent order emerges from scrolling endlessly down the page to trudge through a random salad of sections and headlines all visually dispersed like random magazine pages pinned to poster board. Not only is the page structurally mystifying, but it has been scrubbed white and most borders or graphics that could lend a little sense to the layout have been erased. My news is now presented to me as a large collection of lost and mixed-up tiles floating in a white soup, and I hate it. The content must still be there somewhere but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste this much time hunting for it.

Robin,

Firstly may I say that the level of contempt you have shown the licence fee paying public is frankly beyond belief at failing to acknolwdge the vast swathes of negative feedback. Your total failure to acknowledge and properly address this criticism is simply not good enough and is absolutely shameful in my opinion - totally unprofessional despite your totally deluded waffle as above.

Across every platform (iOS, Google Play, these forums and Twitter) I hope you would recognise that the vast, vast majority of reviews/feedback for the post v3 iterations has been, overall, very poor. To claim otherwise is just simply untrue and absurd. Tens of thousands of reviewers across these boards and the aforementioned platforms are testament to this. To idly dismiss these reviews as a Luddite based minority is simply fatuous and untrue. To cite the (relatively very small) number of positive reviews (which in themselves are not universal in praise) as evidence that the improvements are justified and that the app is 'evolving', 'heading in the right direction' etc. is absurd. Surely you must recognise the overwhelmingly bad feedback on this?

You claim you are actively improving the user experience by offering more video, bigger pictures, more ‘content’ et al. But surely you'd recognise that users don't want this as evidenced by the plethora of negative feedback. You fail to realise the key design principle of less is more. Users like simplicity, not loads of complex 'busy' features as others have attested. More features does not necessarily equate to a better UE.

Fundamentally people want a content driven experience: this does NOT equate to loading up every article with a plethora of video. N.B. Users want analysis, intelligent comment and facts in a text based format – not dumbed down, infantile, spoon fed type lightweight content comprising of ludicrously large pictures, small amounts of text and an incredibly frustrating navigation experience. Not to mention the fact that a lot of the content is not updated for hours on end! The ‘Got It’ tutorial constantly re-appears, and you can’t browse whilst commuting as people can’t download swathes of video therefore they can’t read the content – really poor and wholly inconsiderate. No breaking news ticket any longer. This simply isn’t good enough and marks a clear regression from your previous offering (i.e. V2)

The so-called app based testing that you undertook for the app rollout comprised of 2000 users, 750 of which were BBC (and therefore biased, non-impartial) employees - this is simply not good enough, and clearly not conducive to a comprehensive and robust testing approach.

I'd be grateful for a response regarding all of these points - no doubt you won't bother.

Robin,

Are you sure "We’re pleased that in these surveys users have ranked the new solution higher than the existing website."? You are _pleased_ that you have been misled into thinking that the new design is in any way acceptable?

It still feels like the BBC stance is that the negative comments are from stick-in-the-muds who hate change and the aesthetically challenged who haven't yet worked out how wonderful the new design actually is.

The reality is that hundreds of your customers are telling you in well-argued and convincing detail just how catastrophically wrong this update has been. It would be a really helpful start if somebody in the BBC responded with even a hint of understanding that things haven't gone particularly well.

The upgrade can be salvaged - the technical aspects seem reasonably robust and at least half of the most glaring design defects can be addressed quite quickly. But improvement won't start until the BBC takes its fingers out of its ears and responds to licence fee payers.

My guess is that very few people are the least bit interested in promises of "really exciting new features" until the basics are fixed. What your loyal readers want to know is how long it will take to bring the site back to an acceptable quality. There is limited patience and at the moment no confidence that anyone in the project even understands that urgent remediation is needed.

As I put in an earlier post, this is not about knee-jerk reactions to something new, it is about the wilful destruction of what was one of the world's most authoritative news websites.

So, about these focus groups you are using as a means to ignore actual users.

Are they actually made up of end users this time? Or are a large chunk of the groups BBC employees again?

Note to the the BBC Web Team re:

"BBC News: a single web solution for everyone"

'One Size Fits All' just doesn't - it fits a very few people just right and the vast majority very badly.

Read the overwhelming majority of comments and any Blog that you have run relating to the changed News Website and the News App. Read the the BBCNewsApp reviews.

For the sake of clarity - You have a disaster on your hands - and you keep on fiddling - it's time to go back to the Restore Point which is the previous versions.

"As a team we recognise that we won't be able to please all users with the changes". Do you recognise that far from pleasing you're managing to alienate the majority of users?

Really a total failure for the desktop user. Oceans of open-plan white space without the mix of black/blue/grey text and bordered news sections that intuitively drew our attention to the NEWS. It's a "responsive solution" delivering video and analytical articles in a vein similar to that of an amateurish blog. Papers, Reporters, Features, Explainers, Sport, Local News & Weather and Picture galleries. In no way does it deliver NEWS in a format that is comprehensive for our reading pleasure on the desktop. It's a "one-shoe-size fits all" solution redesign for yesterday's smaller mobile screens.

I really don't like your new format, the colours are too bright, fonts too large not enough stories too choose from without loads of scrolling. Bring back the old format, much more user friendly. I will be looking for an alternative news service until you change it

This new layout is unattractive & offputting. I find the news content superficial now the concentration is on video clips. I shall use other news sources now.

I was invited to try the new version - and quickly switched back. My main issue was that there were no tint boxes or rulink lines to differentiate areas, just a big unbroken sea of white. Probably from the mind of someone with an exceptionally tidy desk, was my initial, albeit uncharitable thought.

I have always run my mobile devices on the Desktop version of the BBC News site, because the mobile one was so awful. But now that option is being yanked away. Perhaps I will just defect to an alternative news provider.

How exactly is this redesign responsive? Fewer news items are visible at once. There's no delineation to the blocks of text. White, white everywhere! Ridiculous amount of empty space. Videos where I want text.
I use the programme, "f.lux", to reduce screen glare and even at its highest setting, the BBC news site is still offensive! I changed my homepage from the BBC homepage to BBC news at the last redesign, but now there's no escape from this poor design and no part of the BBC site that is fit for use - sad to say, it' time to go find another news page.

For what reason do you believe I want my 27" 2560 x 1440 screen to be two thirds blank?