December 14, 2007
The BBC have redesigned their homepage.
I used to work for the BBC. So, I have a good understanding how difficult it is to work there and get anything complete and out of the door to a high, exacting design standard. So, today, when I was told the BBC has opened up the new homepage beta for feedback, and also prompted by Jeremy’s post on the subject, I wanted shove my oar in.
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March 18, 2005
Yesterday I attended a BBC run design event called Digital Futures, for internal designers and invited guests, on the future of design in a digital society. There was a eclectic mix of speakers planned for a packed day.
So, quite a distinquished list and it promised to be a interesting mix of presentations.
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December 02, 2004
Following a few months of work the BBC Wales music site has been relaunched with a more advanced technical backend, partial CSS and much tighter information architecture.
November 02, 2004
Today marks the official launch of BBC Vocab at the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.
This smart application highlights words on a welsh language web page with the pressing of a button. When the user then hovers over these words a translation and definition for that word (including mutations) is available for the welsh learner with links to the BBC Learn Welsh site
I was involved in the design implementation and branding of this translation application. for more details, have a look at the Vocab case study in the portfolio section.
Update: BBC Vocab featured on The Register today.
June 21, 2004
Whilst I was away on honeymoon there have been a number of launches at BBC Wales on the “Slash Wales” service (as it’s being marketed - no comment). Anyhow a number of these sites have been in development for nearly 12 months.
They’ve seen a considerable amount of work on the backend and represent re-engineered content management system and a shift in production methodologies - with an emphasis on User Centered Design, Web Standards and an Object Oriented Approach to the content management, with extensive look at cross promotion and meta data.
In Pictures
In Pictures pulls together a lot of content from across the BBC Wales service relating to images and puts it into one place. This was a first go at creating a generic style for all functional portals using CSS to render as much of the presentational information as possible.
Development / IA / Design / CSS
Surfing
This site represents the most work. A complete reworking of the Information Architecture, User Interface and a lot of time spent on the graphic design integration with the new content management structure. I’ll be giving a more detailed breakdown of these sites once I get my portfolio redesigned.
Development / IA / Design / CSS Implementation
Weather
This is phase one of the weather portal. It’s not quite right yet. The weather app needs some work from a usability point of view and the overall green/blue feel has been lost with the introduction of the garish purple. Hopefully this will be addressed in the next phase.
Development / IA / Design
May 18, 2004
The BBC launches it’s new homepage design. Several changes have been made, most noticably the new bbc.co.uk brand. More on the brand from Matt Jones. I’m not going to comment. The usability has been improved considerably with the redesign of the category section. There is a really clear definition now between Wayfinding and Most recent content.
I guess this has been to try and accomodate different users interaction needs, in that some browse, some are very task focussed, some know where they are going, some don’t and need help. For those that don’t, and need help, the BBC has tried to accomodate for the different modes of interaction - library/categorisation and magazine-like editorial content.
March 01, 2004
I should mention it’s St David’s day. So, here’s a daffodil.
Oh, and BBC Wales have a launched Icons of Wales, which I worked on, to celebrate the occasion. This site (although it doesn’t look much) represents about six months work on the backend and partial implementation of some much needed CSS.
September 04, 2003
Scrum V finally goes live after six months development, design, writing and testing. The site features match reports, clips, man of the match, votes etc. A great magazine site for a large audience in Wales.
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I'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for