BBC walking with widgets
The BBC recently updated and redesigned their website - one of the most viewed websites in the world.
It can’t have been an easy thing for such a huge corporation, who want to lead in their field whilst being inclusive, but they seem to have done it. bbc.co.uk is a big move forward in bringing customisable websites to the masses, making the internet even more interactive. The viewer can design their own bbc website, using a widget-based design similar to Facebook with the potential to reach a much wider and more diverse audience. You can choose what appears on the site, set a location and even move individual widgets around to where best suits you. If you haven’t already, check it out.
The new BBC ‘homepage’ is not customisable. You can move panels (sorry.. widgets!) about but you can’t do much else. There is a god awful huge ‘feature’ panel that can not be moved, removed, or resized. We are supposed to be able to ‘customise’ the ‘widgets’ - try doing that to the sport one to get rid of stuff you don’t want (i.e. football).
The page navigation is attrocious (the main ‘Explore the BBC’ navigation is right at the bottom of the page.
The page is huge and the fonts way too big. Yes you can resize the fonts and make other minor changes, but even in IE7 - the result of font size changes is a disaster.
And then… having set your page to make the best of a bad job… you close the browser. You do your routine ‘housekeeping’ on your computer. You delte rubbish files (temp files, cookies and the like). You decide to check something on the bbc site and …. and…. the homepage has returned to the state… all that ‘customisation’ has gone!
The new homepage is totally awful. It can not be customised, the ‘widgets’ are pointless, the navigation clumsy, the overall appearance is amateurish and shoddy. And if you check the various comments sent in on the BBC blogs, youwill see that not too many users are in favour of the new ‘design’.
As a website developer myself… You made my day with the comments you left on this post.
I suggest you research on cookies (and not the baking kind) before leaving idiotic comments!
Little tip, if you don’t want football to appear in the Sport widget:
1. Click EDIT on the Sport widget.
2. Untick the checkbox next to ‘Football’
3. Click SAVE
It’s literally THAT EASY!!!
Cookies and temp files aren’t rubbish if you need them are they?…. Why delete them if you want them?
Also, you can simply specify not to view the football in your sport widgets.
“but even in IE7″ …LOL
propper browser —> http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Thank you Chris - yes I know that. Have you looked at the banner area of the Sport widget? You can select what you want through editing, but the banner still contains stuff you don’t select. So the ‘fully customisable’ bit goes out of the window.
FYI Steve, I do use Firefox, as well as Opera, NN, and IE. They all have their merits and drawbacks. I don’t limit myself to one browser!
And Adam - I do understand cookies. I also understand that many users delete temp files and cookies as a routine part of their computer management. My point is that with cookie based ‘customisation’ many users will have to either not bother with customising, or they will need to customise every time they access the BBC homepage. Cookies do have their place, and are very useful, but the BBC homepage is a place where they shouldn’t be used.
Yes I have looked at the banner area of the Sport widget Martin and something you seem to be completely forgetting is although the BBC is publicly funded it is still a business and is run as such. If they feel that the ability to promote things to you that you have expressed a dislike of is essential in a marketing tool like their website then I’m afraid you have absolutely no say in the matter.
I really don’t understand where the blind hatred of the new BBC website is coming from, but it certainly isn’t coming from a useability or web design point of view. As for ‘fully customisable’ (where does the incessant need to put single quotes around things come from?) I haven’t seen a single mention of this phrase anywhere, just because you infer the term from your understanding of the word customisable doesn’t make it so.
It’s great that you understand cookies, but a massive percentage of the userbase of the BBC homepage don’t and regular purging of your computer’s cache of cookies certainly isn’t normal behaviour for ‘many users’ just because you ‘understand’ that it is. You yourself have shown that you’re anything but the average user by your admission of having Firefox, Opera, Netscape Navigator AND Internet Explorer all installed… lengths that a normal user certainly wouldn’t go to.
Again I have no problem with constructive criticism, but frankly the comments you have left definitely suggest a bias.
Hi Chris. “I really don’t understand where the blind hatred of the new BBC website is coming from, but it certainly isn’t coming from a useability or web design point of view.” Ummm… yes it IS about the design AND the usability. Do I detect a hint that you are involved in the ‘design’ of the new homepage?
“… but a massive percentage of the userbase of the BBC homepage don’t and regular purging of your computer’s cache of cookies certainly isn’t normal behaviour for ‘many users’ just because you ‘understand’ that it is.” May I suggest you read the comments from users who have submitted to the varios BBC blogs? And in my years of experience people DO clear their caches.
“Again I have no problem with constructive criticism, but frankly the comments you have left definitely suggest a bias.” A bias? Yes I am biased… I do not like the design nor the functionality of the new BBC Homepage. Yes, I am biased toward the previous homepage (call it the ‘old homepage’ if you like - no apologies for the ‘incessant’ use of single quotes, for they are used to indicate emphasis)