Florx
03-04-2008, 07:15 PM
Hey,
Recently the BBC news website was redesigned to become more up to date with the current websites on the internet. The decision to redesign was made when many comments that the design was too cluttered were on the editors blogs.
Originally posted by BBC NEWS | The Editors: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/03/refreshing_changes.html
Specifically, here’s what HAS changed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/news208.jpgIt’s wider - We’ve had lots of feedback from you about making best use of available screen space - we’ve always taken a rather cautious and gradual approach to this because we want to make sure that the maximum number of people can still access our site wherever they are, whatever the screen size or device. But we now reckon that 95% of you have your screen resolution set to 1024 pixels or wider, and we’re confident that it’s the right time to use the extra space to improve the site.
More open design - Our research told us you wanted the content on the site to have more “room to breathe”, so we've opened up the design to let more space in. We hope this will make it easier for you to read the pages and to scan for what you're looking for.
New masthead and centred pages - Some of the changes are part of a new visual style that will apply across all the BBC's new and redesigned websites. The centring of the pages, the underlying layout grid, and the pan-BBC masthead are examples of this. Areas of bbc.co.uk with this new “visual language” that have already launched include the bbc.co.uk homepage (http://www.bbc.co.uk/), /programmes beta (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes), BBC Wales (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/)and Cymru (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/), and The Passion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thepassion/). The new BBC masthead aims to strengthen the presence of the BBC brand across the breadth of the whole BBC site. We'll also be adding a button into the BBC banner area that says "Explore the BBC", which reveals links to other parts of the BBC's site.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/news1998.jpgBigger images - Elsewhere in the user feedback, people have told us they think the pictures we’ve been using on the site look a bit small and cramped. So the new design takes advantage of the wider pages to allow bigger photos - something our journalists also really welcome, recognising as they do the power of pictures in telling stories on the web.
Incorporating ads - For our international users, who already see advertisements on our pages, we wanted to do a better job of incorporating them into the page design, and that’s made easier with the wider pages.
Better presentation of video and audio - As I’ve mentioned previously (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/03/embedded_video.html), we are introducing embedded audio and video on the site – so that you can watch and listen within the page (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7314751.stm), rather than in a separate player. This should significantly improve ease of use, and should also enhance your experience when following a story – the text, stills, graphics and video should work better together as an integrated whole – and our journalists will be able to adapt their storytelling to make best use of video within the narrative, rather than apart from it. To coincide with this new development, the way we signpost video and audio from the main pages is also changing slightly – we are moving it higher up the page, and displaying the links more simply, replacing the multiple options and expandable “stacker” area on the page (which, some may recall, a number of you weren’t too keen on from the outset (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/01/in_response_to_site_changes.html)).
TV and radio news programmes - We’re creating an area on the front pages where we can show you highlights from the great range of journalism produced each day by the BBC’s news and current affairs programmes on TV and radio. Here we’ll be able to link consistently to the best of their audio and video offerings, also to related text articles and to the programmes’ own websites, which are going to be undergoing changes and improvements too.
Thanks,
Jake
Recently the BBC news website was redesigned to become more up to date with the current websites on the internet. The decision to redesign was made when many comments that the design was too cluttered were on the editors blogs.
Originally posted by BBC NEWS | The Editors: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/03/refreshing_changes.html
Specifically, here’s what HAS changed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/news208.jpgIt’s wider - We’ve had lots of feedback from you about making best use of available screen space - we’ve always taken a rather cautious and gradual approach to this because we want to make sure that the maximum number of people can still access our site wherever they are, whatever the screen size or device. But we now reckon that 95% of you have your screen resolution set to 1024 pixels or wider, and we’re confident that it’s the right time to use the extra space to improve the site.
More open design - Our research told us you wanted the content on the site to have more “room to breathe”, so we've opened up the design to let more space in. We hope this will make it easier for you to read the pages and to scan for what you're looking for.
New masthead and centred pages - Some of the changes are part of a new visual style that will apply across all the BBC's new and redesigned websites. The centring of the pages, the underlying layout grid, and the pan-BBC masthead are examples of this. Areas of bbc.co.uk with this new “visual language” that have already launched include the bbc.co.uk homepage (http://www.bbc.co.uk/), /programmes beta (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes), BBC Wales (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/)and Cymru (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/), and The Passion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thepassion/). The new BBC masthead aims to strengthen the presence of the BBC brand across the breadth of the whole BBC site. We'll also be adding a button into the BBC banner area that says "Explore the BBC", which reveals links to other parts of the BBC's site.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/news1998.jpgBigger images - Elsewhere in the user feedback, people have told us they think the pictures we’ve been using on the site look a bit small and cramped. So the new design takes advantage of the wider pages to allow bigger photos - something our journalists also really welcome, recognising as they do the power of pictures in telling stories on the web.
Incorporating ads - For our international users, who already see advertisements on our pages, we wanted to do a better job of incorporating them into the page design, and that’s made easier with the wider pages.
Better presentation of video and audio - As I’ve mentioned previously (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/03/embedded_video.html), we are introducing embedded audio and video on the site – so that you can watch and listen within the page (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7314751.stm), rather than in a separate player. This should significantly improve ease of use, and should also enhance your experience when following a story – the text, stills, graphics and video should work better together as an integrated whole – and our journalists will be able to adapt their storytelling to make best use of video within the narrative, rather than apart from it. To coincide with this new development, the way we signpost video and audio from the main pages is also changing slightly – we are moving it higher up the page, and displaying the links more simply, replacing the multiple options and expandable “stacker” area on the page (which, some may recall, a number of you weren’t too keen on from the outset (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/01/in_response_to_site_changes.html)).
TV and radio news programmes - We’re creating an area on the front pages where we can show you highlights from the great range of journalism produced each day by the BBC’s news and current affairs programmes on TV and radio. Here we’ll be able to link consistently to the best of their audio and video offerings, also to related text articles and to the programmes’ own websites, which are going to be undergoing changes and improvements too.
Thanks,
Jake