

BBC News website redesign - daleharvey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/07/bbc_news_website_redesign.html

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daleharvey
I always like to hear about bbc making changes because I really do think its
one of the best designed sites on the internet, there are annoyances, but
considering the vast quantities of information they have to publish I am
pretty amazed at how well they do.

Given the structure of the organisation I wish they would be a bit more open
though.

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piehen
They did release a doc after the last major redesign. There's a copy at
[http://www.liamdelahunty.com/tips/usability_bbc_redesign_the...](http://www.liamdelahunty.com/tips/usability_bbc_redesign_the_glass_wall.php)

edit: tried to make myself sound less like a bot!

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cicada
It's really annoying how all the pictures are on an angle.

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mortenjorck
It does seem unnatural, but I think it's unavoidable when you're showing
images of a web interface inside another web interface (especially one with
similar design cues). It's going to look strange either way, but it's a little
more comfortable for the brain to keep the boundary when the inner image is
tilted or perspective-shifted in some way.

The best answer would be an isolated image over black (or a lightbox effect)
but alas their CMS probably doesn't support this kind of display.

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pbhjpbhj
BBC CMS does apparently do lightbox-ed galleries -
[http://pressitt.com/public/files/2009/12/17/713/OneDay-
Light...](http://pressitt.com/public/files/2009/12/17/713/OneDay-Lightbox.JPG)

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dotBen
_I was involved in the last redesign of the BBC News website (2003) which went
from a single column site to the current 2-dimensional layout they have today
(I left the BBC in 2006)._

I like and welcome the changes, which I'm certain were huge in terms of
technical work to achieve them. When I worked on it the BBC News Website had 6
month+ type iterations which meant relaunches and redesigns had to be limited
to every couple of years.

My biggest grip with the design is that there still appears to be fewer news
stories (what we called display items internally) on the page than other sites
such as CNN. I am waiting for the site to launch to actually test that.

I also am not sure whether squaring off a single playback box for video is the
right approach over blending in lots of video stories as equal citizens to
text stories through-out the site (something CNN and others do v well). Again,
time will tell once the site launches.

Overall, I'm slightly disappointed there is nothing radically new or
experimental (and even a little copied from CNN perhaps) but I know that Paul
Sissons and the rest of the design team and BBC News have done a fine job and
I look forward to using it.

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kanwisher
I like to redesign, looks very modern. Whats strange is how they are trying to
do an iGoogle or a customized yahoo experience, if you go straight to their
main homepage. I'm wondering if I would really want to use the BBC for my
customized homepage.

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dotBen
You are confusing the "BBC Front Page" (<http://www.bbc.co.uk>) with the "BBC
News Front Page" (<http://news.bbc.co.uk>).

I believe the BBC's customizable front page is aimed at consumers of the
domestic UK BBC output who naturally consume their own personal set of BBC
output (6+ TV stations, 7 national radio stations, tons of local radio
stations, all of the different programme-related websites).

The idea of the BBC front page (ie www.bbc.co.uk) is that you can pull
together a customized front page that reflects the tastes and choices you have
in the BBC's output.

Outside of the UK most of those options are not available and so it seems less
valuable.

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metabrew
Here's the (8MB PDF) about the BBC redesign in 2002, known as "The Glass Wall"
document <http://www.liamdelahunty.com/blog/media/theglasswall.pdf>

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andy_mason
The Beta is now live: <http://beta.bbc.co.uk/news/>

