i think the beta has been updated.

Those are some seriously huge font sizes. It makes me wonder if the majority of visitors are 65 and older.

I agree about Verdana. If you’re going to go big, use something else. In my opinion, the previous homepage had class, dignity and a unique personality. Why would an organization purposely choose to toss aside these attributes?

I didn’t even realise you could click on the tabs to see more homepage promos…

and while I do love the clock on a “eccentricity in innovation” idea, it’s hard to see what use it has for the user. But then again, I always hate having the weather so prominently there.

Also, it’s a little silly to berate the BBC website team for making websites look like TV. After all, the BBC is still fundamentally a broadcasting organisation that views the web as nothing more than an after-the-TV experience, a chance to catch up on what you missed. It’s not interested in enhancing the interactive experience, taking the Internet audience to new places - it’s merely a platform to re-enjoy BBC content. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

If you want Web innovation, then you’ll have to look at companies and organisations that have the web as their primary focus. Such as Google or Yahoo. Oh…

Personally I’m of a similar mind as you Mark there’s far too many negatives at the moment:

1. I used to like the 800x600 size, now it’s 980 pixels for a 1024x768 monitor

2. The typography throughout is horrific, I wouldn’t like to guess how many type sizes, inconsistent lowercase/uppercase scenarios are being used… and don’t even get me started on the ‘dog teeth’ american quote marks, this is a British website isn’t it!!!

3. The BBC logo is HUGE and lacks any degree of subtlety… actually everything is too large

4. Gradients and CSS switches, slides = gimmicky

The analogue clock is the only redeeming item I can find on the website at the moment but 3 lines for a date even ruins this for me. Please BBC change it back:

If it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it…

As a large organisation, I can understand the design team producing an inferior solution. However, there is no reason for the front-end developers to have written such poor quality mark-up and CSS.

If you increase/decrease the font size the page falls apart, to really quite a depressing degree.

OK, the visual design does indeed look dated, and the ‘wdgetization’ is something I can take or leave. But the one thing that really annoys me about this design is that I can collapse every single widget _except the only one that I want to_ - the great big useless area top right with the multi-colour buttons.

So much screen real-estate (especially on my 1280x800 screen) that I absolutely do not care about. In the slightest. Why can’t I delete it and have the tv and weather up there? You know, the things I care about.

Ghastly - you hit the nail on the head here. It’s one long drawn out web 2.0 cliché. They should get a new domain to go with the ghastliness, something really annoying like beebr.com or b.bc.co.uk - bleah. I wonder if BBC Wales will follow suit, although we can all imagine how that would turn out. I’m saying nothing.

Andrew, almost witty’s back? You never said!

/Dio subscribes…

beta must updated!

So they rounded everything then. Nasty.

I also seem not to be able to look at it for too long. It’s too, in your face.

Hey, at least you can turn of the rounded corners in the display options. While you’re there, I also suggest turning down the font size a bit.

You can also play drag and drop with the widgets too. How nice.

Dear Mr Boulton

Why oh why…

The beeb has to be all things to all people all the time, respect it’s heritage and live in the future. Parts of it I like. Parts of it, mainly the Verdana, are just horrid.

It’s classic design by committee, but for an organisation that is under constant, daily, vitriolic attack from the popular press, it’s also fairly brave in a way.

The clock is clearly a nod to the 70’s/early 80’s, but it’s willing to ditch globes and clocks on the idents. And as for the weather icons, Mark, you’ve got it explained perfectly. Do we look back or forward? It’s like Indecisive Dave from The Fast Show.

I wonder if the Test Card will get widgetized? If they do that it’ll be “worth the licence fee alone”

Yours
Slightly perplexed of Rissington

hey! why dell my post?

The one redeeming feature of the new site is the clock.  It took me right back to my childhood, waiting for The Goodies to come on.  I think that The Goodies may have been involved in the redesign - particularly those multi-colour buttons!

Ghastly - you hit the nail on the head here. It’s one long drawn out web 2.0 cliché. They should get a new domain to go with the horridness, something really annoying like beebr.com or b.bc.co.uk - bleah. I wonder if BBC Wales will follow suit, although we can all imagine how that would turn out. I’m saying nothing.

Also, it doesn’t render properly in firefox on a Mac - seems to be extra gaps under some of the tabs.

Andrew, almost witty’s back? You never said!

/Dio subscribes…

Oops, apologies for the double post, had a snafu earlier with a post and tried again later, not realising the earlier post had gone up (I got an error when I did it...)

Anyway, one other thing that’s not been noticed is that despite the CSS, the page is bloated code wise. Yes I know it’s the era of broadband, but still.

Old homepage: 72k
New beta: 388k

Shocking.

It *must* be a joke of some sort. Something to do with Boosh and eels… one can hope… ;)

I hate to be the sand in the Vaseline here but I think it’s alright.

OK:
-The ugly main promo module, with its peculiar ability to screw with the colour scheme of the entire page, should be optional.
-The big Verdana is nasty – not a nice substitute for Gill sans.
-It all looks kind of jumbled on the horizontal to these eyes.
-Bad, indistinct weather icons – Out of keeping with the bold, simple appearance.

However:
-Overall it’s quicker and easier to find the main things that I look for.
-Nice easy links to listen to the radio.
-That clock’s lovely.
-It doesn’t waste half of my screen.
-Easy to personalise the content.
-2.0 may be played out but there is a reason for the popularity of the style. It’s bold clear, friendly and inviting. The BBC is a public service and needs to be all of those things.
-That clock really is a looker.

Whilst I’m surprised at the Beeb for using American quotes, I think overall that it is a step in the right direction. Less, and bigger, words works for me it seems.

A few revisions, a little code trimmage, and I think it’ll be just the ticket.

I don’t like the clock at all. It’s a gimmick that’s totally out of place in the current design, and I’ll never agree with the idea of using such a large amount of real estate for telling the time right underneath where my operating system puts the clock.

Hi Mark. The page is a beta, which means you can send feedback here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/feedback/

I appear to be alone in rather liking it.  First, just look at how awful the existing site is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/

*Anything* would be an improvement on that uninspired phone directory of a page. 

The new design is clear, concise and it’s a whole lot easier to see what content is available, which is the whole point.  Being able to drag the ‘widgets’ around (come on, what’s a better name?  Panels? Components?  Nah) is great.  Clicking the + and - buttons to add and remove content is lovely.  The clock rules.

Of course it’s not without it’s flaws.  Clicking the Edit button an on ‘minimized’ widget does nothing visible, the colour-changing buttons are somewhat odd, and it doesn’t validate.  But it’s still a beta, so I guess we can cut them some slack.

Of course gradients, reflections and rounded corners are a becoming little clichéd in the web/graphic design world, but this look and feel is probably *really* appealing to the other 99.9% of the country who this site is designed for.

WOT, no VAG Rounded?

I think its going to take some getting used to. I really don’t understand the whole colour changing nonsense on the page!

Why Why Why? There is no relevance to the content and the color. Surely each colour should represent a different aspect of the BBC site, instead it changes the whole layouts colour which got me confused.

Beta. Web 2.0
BBC is late.
That is so 2006.
But oh well. Its still a nice improvement.

Yuck! I agree with much of what others are highlighting:
- those tabs? Why colours? They are totally confusing. When you change tabs you feel like you are changing environments. But all the content is the same. Whats going on? Its there a point? Do I just don’t get it? This is not Web 2.0, its dumb 2.0
- The clock - OMG. Please! I remember when free clock javascripts just started and everyone ‘chucked’ them into their pages to be cool. This feature makes me feel like I’m going back to those pre-2000 days.
- What about information design, which Mark has alluded to. Where do I start, whats the purpose. The tabs/advert section grabs your eye and pulls you away from the content that is most important.
- I think there are more colours/shades than there are words ‘above the fold’ on the home page - a sure sign the page is too busy and confirms the visual noise you feel when you meet BBC beta for the first time
- fonts - too big. period.

There are some nice features, but they seem to be suffering from a lack of direction. The features seem to be driving the design.

Im disappointed.

What happened? The tabs are gone now. I just read that the little windows could be dragged and dropped around. Cool. But when went back to the beta page to try it out, it appears to have been updated, and for the better! All of the sudden the information design is much better. Still has issues, but the removal of the tabs makes such a difference. They must be listening!

> I love the analogue clock in the top right.
Surely this is a prime candidate for the design getting in the way of the information? Why do we need a clock? This is not the an underground station.

I’d prefer something useful up here like the weather icons ;-)

Thanks,
AJ

So! very interesting comment!

I pretty much agree with all of Mark’s points. It’s a clear case of design over content. It’s visually clumsy and confusing. There’s really no point in changing pages colours when selecting a feature tab. Like, many features, the weather box is way too contrasting and too hard to look at. And the new weather symbol for sunny is ridiculous!

I agree with Andy Hume about the clock. It’s gimmicky. A standard feature on modern day operating systems is a clock in the corner of the screen. Same goes for the date. The only reason I can think that it might be useful is that screen grabs will be visually dated.

The most unnecessary feature for me is the +/- buttons on the latest news. Why anyone would want to add and remove them is beyond me. Can’t the BBC just decide on a number?

The previous iBar worked very well. The new header simply looks messy - I’m sure it wont stand the test of time.

The content directory is great, but maybe doesn’t justify home page content. The addition of concise TV listings however, seem to me, essential for a television broadcaster and a welcome edition.

Most of what I am reading here is simply subjective drival (e.g. I like the clock, the colors are bad, the font is too big, I hate sliders, rounded corners are dumb, widgetization isn’t a word). Yes, I too have a list of tweaks that I think would make the redesign more usable but overall I think they did a very nice job. I found the old site hard to navigate, hard to read, cluttered, confusing, & boring.

- Almost everybody seems to go gaga over the clock.  It requires a plug-in.  I don’t use Macromedia/Adobe plug-ins on purpose.  I don’t want to see any moving, dancing, jumping annoyances.

- The new design falls a victim to another fad—light-color text that’s difficult to read.  I’ve seen this happening over the last 18 months on numerous websites, including this one.

Yes the new beta was released, thanks for your article!