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See the original image at bbc.co.uk

New look for the BBC News website

bbc.co.uk — Their designers embarked on a mission that they have called a “site refresh” - they say it’s “like gardeners doing a bit of pruning and weeding, but not digging it up and starting from scratch" ie it’s not a fundamental redesign of everything – many of the basics stay the same, because they work.

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  • thespanielator, on 03/31/2008, -8/+2Where's the link to the Weather?
    • geekchic, on 03/31/2008, -2/+4I've always had to go to the main BBC homepage for the weather reports.
    • thespanielator, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2it wasn't there at first!
    • sameer768, on 03/31/2008, -1/+5On the left, near the bottom...where it says weather
  • Shrill, on 03/31/2008, -0/+35Will take a little while to get used to... but on the whole I like it. It's got a fresh look and it's now wider and centered. There does appear to be a few issues with spacing on a few of the sections, for example I like the condensed view of the Business page better than the front page which appears to have a little too much line spacing and white space.

    On the whole though, a nice new layout, larger images too which is nice to see.
    • allywilson, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1Did anyone else look at the frontpage and just think "Web 2.0?" Not saying it's a bad thing...I just thought it.
    • Orestes2718, on 03/31/2008, -2/+0White space is where advertisements appear, for the most part.
  • Shrill, on 03/31/2008, -7/+17here's a direct link to the website in question: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
  • MikeonTV, on 03/31/2008, -1/+6Sheesh. They need nested comments like no other!
  • TheHogester, on 03/31/2008, -0/+33I like it, looks much cleaner now.
  • alexgeorge52, on 03/31/2008, -8/+19I like the new clean look, but somehow the news looks less 'serious', don't know if that is a good thing.
  • nandasunu, on 03/31/2008, -1/+7about time they did this, looks a lot cleaner now.
  • damawa42, on 03/31/2008, -8/+3Wow the editor actually wrote an entire blog post about it without linking to the site itself...

    Nice and clean, do like the new design, was a surprise this morning.
    • geekchic, on 03/31/2008, -0/+17"Wow the editor actually wrote an entire blog post about it without linking to the site itself... "

      Apart from the large BBC News logo at the top of the page.
      • Hefelumpman, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4And the link to the site at the bottom of his post...
  • medj, on 03/31/2008, -8/+1Dugg for the word 'digging' in description.
  • godzillaWax, on 03/31/2008, -2/+6There's too much text just floating out in the ether with no discernible anchor to anything around it.
    And what's the point of having a hundred pixels high of just black across the top? I like that they're going for a more minimalist approach (as opposed to something like cnn.com which wants you to know, at all times, how great and wonderful and topical cnn is), but the black band is just a waste.
    • Jaydude765, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1I believe it is an attempt to keep a bit in line with the newly redesigned BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk). However, flipping between the two i see there are differences. The clock, date and font style for starters.
  • Noodleson, on 03/31/2008, -8/+1wheres the 'digg it' button?
  • moonguidex, on 03/31/2008, -16/+1So?
  • GUESShimself, on 03/31/2008, -3/+11The new looks is fine, but the markup (specifically the TABLES) is not so fine...
  • theright, on 03/31/2008, -5/+2On the whole, not bad.
  • UberNick, on 03/31/2008, -1/+12Compare to newly redesigned USA Today site. The main difference? No giant, flashing, obnoxious ads!
    The BBC site looks phenomenal in comparison.

    /anticipating "what ads?" comment from annoying abp user
    • theright, on 03/31/2008, -1/+12what ads?

      Yours sincerely,
      annoying abp user
    • godzillaWax, on 03/31/2008, -1/+7Well, I guess that's the main difference between a commercial organization and a public one financed by the British.
    • yongfook, on 03/31/2008, -1/+14you fail to understand how the BBC works. It is not an ad-run business. They have the luxury of being free of commercial pressure from advertisers to show flashy ads on their homepage (or indeed, any of their TV channels) because the British taxpayer keeps them afloat. For other news providers, advertising is just a reality you have to accept for consuming their content for free.
      • LokitheComplex, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1You pay for ads too in editorial, product costs and time.
      • yongfook, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4hmm I just realised that international viewers are exempt from this policy and in fact do see ads - my mistake!
    • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -0/+10what ads?

      /Licence payer
      • AlexBellisBrown, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Correct, if you broadcast a IP address from outside the UK, say hello to adverts for Geneva watches, and British Airways. ( Lost luggage anyone?)
  • Cattywampus, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2Looks good to me. The old design was OK with me, but it crammed a lot of stuff on the front page. The new look is cleaner and less cluttered.
    • tba2287, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3The BBC is finally dropping support for 800x600 monitors.
      Also, do you know what fonts they're using? They look nicer.
  • ibeandy, on 03/31/2008, -2/+6I still can't believe they have ads for international users. While I like the new design I hope they don't change anything content-wise. I've come to rely on the good auld bbc.com over the years...
    • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -1/+7Why can't you believe they have ads for international users? Seems pretty fair to me.
    • bxblox, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3free doesnt grow on trees
    • sonycam, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1International users don't pay for the BBC, British users do... plus (when I've used the BBC site outside of the UK), the ads never seemed invasive, they were just ads for BBC DVDs and programmes.
      • ibeandy, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2I'm not saying i don't understand their reasons for doing it. It's completely fair. I just don't want the bbc website to resemble the ad-filled mess that is the sky/fox website any time soon. It just wouldn't be the bbc site that we all know anymore then
  • Totz83, on 03/31/2008, -12/+7It looks *****, thats just my opinion though. I prefer fullscreen sites, all this centralizing is wasting money, I paid for a widescreen and I want to use it dammit
    • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3Hold Ctrl+roll your mouse wheel forward. Better?
      • Totz83, on 03/31/2008, -5/+1In FF that just resizes text, not zoom into page. Thanks all the same and nice Cream logo ^^
        • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1I'm on FF3B4 ;) It resizes everything.

          Attending creamfields this year?
          • Totz83, on 03/31/2008, -3/+1Downloading . . . .! Nah, its been banned from Ireland lol. Ive went evrey year up to now though. I wonder how times we'll get dugg down for having an off topic discussion lol, my guess is 25 =P
          • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1It's been banned?! Why? I've been twice, 2006 and last year (the one in Cheshire), heading there again this year, 10 year birthday, huuuge line-up!!
  • ArtooPotatoo, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1Looks great - about time!
  • TheHayze, on 03/31/2008, -1/+6It looks A LOT better. I want that point to stand clear. I also want this point to stand above what i'm going to say next. The site looks better then what it used to be, and there is an obvious improvement. But, like most news sites, there is still quite a lot going on on the page. If the designers are still looking for suggestions, If I may be so bold as to suggest it: cut down some of what's going on on the page. By that I mean, the banners, or a side bar somewhere, or SOMETHING to make it a bit more cleaner. Course, there are people out there who like busy pages, and that's fine. It is. But in what professional advice I could possibly give, it would be that.

    But please. Don't get me wrong here. The new site is MUCH better, and it's very clean and tidy. Everything is where it's supposed to be, and works the way it's supposed to. Stuff is in logical places, and it's easy to find what i'm looking for, and what I expect. I say 9.6/10 because i'm really just nit picking here. If the designers are even going to look at Digg comments, and give two craps about em. :P (Which I doubt, of course.)
    • zongamin, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1Another 'don't get me worng' ***** here.
  • Angostura, on 03/31/2008, -2/+22I

    think that

    they could do

    with less vertical leading

    in the text

    elements.
    • slinkos, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1That's exactly the first thing that struck me. Too much space between headings, paragraphs and list items.
    • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Agreed. But the rest of it looks good.
  • moletimer, on 03/31/2008, -3/+1It's good, but there's not much 'news' on the front page anymore. It's good that you can customize it though - much more modern and Web 2.0-esque : )
  • mushroomqueen, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1I think it looks fine. It's a lot more smooth and colourful looking.
  • fredthered, on 03/31/2008, -2/+13looks great, pity they still only support Realplayer or Windows Media though.
    • geekchic, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4That is being phased out in support of flash based players though
    • urbanprofanity, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1"As I’ve mentioned previously, we are introducing embedded audio and video on the site – so that you can watch and listen within the page, rather than in a separate player."

      Example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7290322.stm
    • fLUx1337, on 03/31/2008, -0/+5Yeh, flash would be great, they already do it for ALL the TV they broadcast, its called iPlayer, and it is AMAZING. No ads, no crap, no sign up, no login, only thing which bugs me is the ~5-10sec clip at the beginning telling you what channel it was from (BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, BBC News 24, etc..)
      • saralk, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2You can move the slider to the end of the station ident video if you don't want to watch it.

        Some aren't too bad, the BBC3 video is only like 2 seconds long, but the BBC2 video is really long.
  • mrSimon, on 03/31/2008, -1/+4Too bulky.
  • yongfook, on 03/31/2008, -6/+9An impressive 378 validation errors:
    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnew ...

    Tut tut, BBC...

    My comments:
    http://www.yongfook.com/post/view/314/new-bbc-news ...
    • fLUx1337, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2yeh, shame they didn't check the validation. Though most of it is stupid errors, like not specifying javascript as javascript, just using .
    • elbekko, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1Their problem is that they slapped a XHTML doctype on an HTML page. I expected more of the BCC.
    • Ataxia2008, on 03/31/2008, -3/+1Haha, your name almost sounds like you're a paedophile.

      /racism
      /Un-PC
  • icurl, on 03/31/2008, -5/+4It's like the news for blind kids!
  • schizogony, on 03/31/2008, -0/+72.0'd
  • wiretapped, on 03/31/2008, -7/+2I hate it.
  • More4, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1What's going on at BBC World Service? Both of the Outlook presenters, Payton & Dove, left last week after 10 years eachon Outlook. Their existence has been wiped from the site. BBC-WS seems to have dropped the World Business Review program also. The schedule on the website hasn't been available for the past few days.
  • exomni, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3I like wider, but I'd prefer matching-window width, so the site extends wider as I open up my window.

    The clock is a nice touch.

    Overall too much "aesthetic touch" and not enough text and actual content being displayed. I prefer sites like the NYT, where they actually display the news right there in front of you, without any gimmicky interface images.
    • Jamma27, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1It sounds like you're on the BBC homepage, which has also changed. If you go onto BBC News itself, there's more of what you are looking for
  • Th3Hamburgler, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Not bad but they loose points for the state of the source code and taking the easy way out by using way to many tables!
    • geekchic, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1They win points for taking the easy way out and using tables - rather than wasting taxpayers money on trying to be "purists" when wriiting the underlying code that 99.99999% of their users wont care about.
  • mokepoke, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1Looks great but unfortunately it runs terribly on my iPhone in comparison to the old design.
  • exomni, on 03/31/2008, -3/+1Bet news site designs:

    http://www.wired.com/

    Just a beauty to look at, and functional. Big text, good layout. Love the images on the columns next to each story.

    http://www.nytimes.com/

    All the content right there in front of you, no gimmicky interface images and "borders" and annoyances. Plenty of text, and actual content right there on the front page.
  • luke16, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3The whole BBC website has changed, not just the News section, looks really good. http://www.bbc.co.uk/
    • fLUx1337, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1While it looks nice, its still only a nerfed version of Netvibes, really....
    • theright, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1The new BBC homepage was released in "Beta" months ago, and was launched officially a few weeks ago.
  • dragunova, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1I like it.
    • JGent, on 03/31/2008, -1/+0It changed on me while I was reading it earlier on, however I didn't think the redesign of a website was dig worth (should of thought better) let alone good enough to get on the front page....
      • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1It changed because the particular article was written with the old style. If you look at story from say 2001, the layout is different again. New articles will have the new look.
  • MuRf07, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2nice design, lovin' that clock!
    • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2What clock? :S
      • Jamma27, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1He's on the BBC homepage, not BBC news. They've both changed, for the better imo
  • masscrazy, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3I like the old style better.
  • gothicform, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4It looks cleaner but come on... it has 31 pixel gaps between vertical elements and I am running very large monitors here. That is BAD. They need to reduce the vertical spacing so they can get more on the page - scrolling is bad!
  • mbradbury, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2Anyone know what CMS they use?
    • wiretapped, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3BBC
      • upyourego, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3There are about 12 different CMS systems within the BBC - News and Sport use a purpose built Windows based one called CPS whereas BBC Local, Cbeebies, CBBC and Comedy all use a heavily customised version of Documentum. There's also another CMS again for the BBC Homepage.
    • upyourego, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2There are about 12 different CMS systems within the BBC - News and Sport use a purpose built Windows based one called CPS whereas BBC Local, Cbeebies, CBBC and Comedy all use a heavily customised version of Documentum. There's also another CMS again for the BBC Homepage.

      Oh and they use Movable Type for the blogs.
  • SolidSnake24, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2I liked the old design, but at least it's better than the bloated ITV news site (http://www.itv.com/news/)
    • theright, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1Bloated? It doesn't even have any content!
  • Wolfsoap, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2I think the tables are there because it is the old HTML site line for line, they've just updated the CSS. Guess it was way cheaper that way.
  • wiretapped, on 03/31/2008, -4/+1The British taxpayer pays out our wages so the Americans can have an Advert-free website. :(
    • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4International users have ads. It even says that in the article!
      • Ataxia2008, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1And clever people have adblock.

        although If the ads affected me on the beeb site, I wouldn't block them. I love the BBC :)
  • bxblox, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2Meh... I just prefer the newyorktimes look, with less whitespace and more actual news on the front.
  • sammydeath, on 03/31/2008, -1/+5BBC. the one thing thats british that is still good
  • LokitheComplex, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3Its too wide. Though I use 800x600 these days to try and save my eyes. Reading on screen is not good and reading small is bad. In the era of CSS can't they make layout changeable?
  • wiretapped, on 03/31/2008, -7/+1I'm using Sky News from now on, their website is amazing!
    http://news.sky.com/skynews/home
    • geekchic, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2The above comment was brought to you by News International
    • theright, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1Your sarcasm skills are weak, son.
    • Ataxia2008, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Rupert...Is...Is that you?
  • thomasb227, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3 It's a step in the right direction but this could be spaced much more nicely and the validation errors make me weep.
    • geekchic, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2Do the validation errors affect the functionality of the website in a manner so draconian to cause you to weep?
  • thailand1972, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Well they've finally ditched 800 x 600 and about time. I don't care what the design fundamentalists say about supporting low res, cater to 1024 x 768 minimum for a better experience - the time has come! Shame about their sloppy markup though......
    • shackleton1, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1I disagree. I run 1024 resolution. However, I do not usually have my browser maximised. 800 x 600 conveniently fits into a non maximised browser. Because they have designed it in 1024 resolution, trying to browse the site when the window isn't maximised is extremely frustrating. In my view, this is a very common mistake by website designers. Sure, not many people run 800 x 600. But a lot of people still run 1024 x 768, and a lot of them won't maximise their browser windows. The other day I was looking at a website and they'd done 1024 resolution design, and all of the important stuff was on the right hand side of the page. That single fact took me from "looks kind of interesting" evaluation to "this is wasting my time" evaluation. I wasted a good 15 minutes of time trying to find certain features before I noticed I had to scroll to the right.
      • Ataxia2008, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2I HIGHLY doubt you're in the majority browsing the internet in a non-maximized browser screen.

        Boo-Hoo. Get over it.
  • thegreypilgrim, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1Not exactly a radical makeover...
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