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BBC News [news.bbc.co.uk] undergoes facelift

edesignuk

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
:eek: It's the end of an era! The BBC News website has changed it's look (or at least is in the midst of doing so, some links still go to the old style).

BBC Blog on the redesign. [thanks iBlue] :)

Old:

http://up.*************/files/1/Images/Forums/BBCNewsOld_thumb.jpg


New:

http://up.*************/files/1/Images/Forums/BBCNewsNew_thumb.jpg


It's quite a bit wider, which I can see irritating users of older small laptops. Everything is a bit bigger than I feel it needs to be. Still though, sitting at work with my dual 20" screens :D I'm not too fussed, I like it.
 
The front page was changed quite a while ago wasn't it (??)

But it is good to see the changes are working their was through the site, along it only took two clicks to find the old design still on some pages.
 
Yeah, front page for the BBC in general was changed a while back after a beta period. The news site has only just started to change today.
 
It's quite a bit wider, which I can see irritating users of older small laptops. Everything is a bit bigger than I feel it needs to be.
Click to expand...

The default text size is really too big for the 13" MacBook screen. I actually assumed Firefox had screwed up when I checked the news this morning and started fiddling around with preferences until I realised it was a new style:)
 
Check BBC news first thing each morning. Nearly spilt my coffee when I saw the new design. I don't like it.

- Old style I could scan the whole page and see all the news in one go.
- New style seems too spread out. Too much white space and it's all so messy. I have to scroll down, down, down, and further down to see the whole page.

I like white space as much as the next teddy-bear, but it needs to be done with style.

- Grey text is an eyekiller. God gave us black text, why not use it?

This is my biggest peeve. I find the grey text to be harder to read and a strain on the eyes. Every serious website uses black text for serious issues, it lets you concentrate on the reading.

I predict a move to black text, and hopefully some tidying up of the white space. Almost every UK broadsheet has gone to the berliner style as it's easier to scan.

- Doublespaced lines!

Why has BBC news gone the opposite direction and double-spaced every line? The articles and front page seem to extend forever downwards.

When I get to work, I'll see if one of our new dell 2408s, swivelled vertically, is big enough to display a typical article.

BBC, give us an option to turn off the line double-spacing please. It's a webpage, not an essay submitted for marking by a tutor.
 
Doesn't render at all well in Gecko based browsers. Text way too large. It's fine on Safari though.
 
It does seem a bit big, but I'm sure it'll just take some getting used to. The only thing I dislike (and this is being really picky) is the placement of the "Low Graphics | Accessibility help" links at the top right - they look a bit cramped, and were they to move to the far right that whole grey bar would not have to be so unnecessarily big.

On the whole though, I like it :)
 
dynamicv said:
Doesn't render at all well in Gecko based browsers. Text way too large. It's fine on Safari though.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out. I was looking at it in firefox when I made my rant earlier. Just looked at it in Safari, and you're right, it works *MUCH* better.

Safari: giant white space under headline photo is gone, text size is much smaller, double spacing is reduced. Still that annoying grey text colour though.

Is it possible to create a bit of code to feed to the browser to force it to render news.bbc.co.uk's grey font as black?

EDIT: In Safari, changing font size via cmd-+or - works propely, changing all fonts on the page. In Firefox, the same command only changes the left menu font size, leaving the article text untouched. Something's broken somewhere, either in Firefox or in the page code.
 
Well, I got to work and tried it on a Dell 2408 set vertically. Funnily enough, Firefox shows it better on that, but it still looks dire on my macbook screen. Presumably the BBC devs have rather big monitors?

Even the full length of a vertical 24inch monitor still isn't enough to display the full front page, either on Firefox or Safari, which suggests it stretches over about 2000 pixels, or about 2 feet long at standard 72dpi resolution. That's rather bloated.

I don't have a link to the old front page, but I remember it was about a screen and a half long on my macbook, so maybe about 900 pixels long.

Articles are slightly shorter but not much, about 1800 to 1900 pixels long, and just fitting on the 24 inch screen.
 
I also use the BBC site every morning and several times throughout the day....even have an RSS feed of the site. As for the new design...I like it, it renders perfectly on both Firefox 2 & Safari 3.1 for me on my iMac and i'm not even using the whole 20"s of screen estate. I'm glad things are now clearly spaced even though it means you have to do more scrolling i don't mind. I also like the new colour scheme.

Overall good job

EDIT: Its also not that bad on my BlackBook...granted there's a lot more vertical scrolling
 
Yeah, i'm not sure what to think of it really, i suppose it brings it up to date a bit. I like the flash clock on the main BBC page however.

EDIT: I clicked a link and it took me to one page in the older style. I suppose they have a few things to iron out!
 
RedTomato said:
In Firefox, the same command only changes the left menu font size, leaving the article text untouched. Something's broken somewhere, either in Firefox or in the page code.
Click to expand...

firefox 3 will/does zoom the whole page, text and pics,...
 

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BBC's new site, looks clean

Today (probably), BBC has just updated their site.

Looks clean and simple, and I must say it's slightly better than CNN's site. I came across this when reading my usual RSSs. Yeah, took them quite some time to update it... before it was the left-aligned site for 1024*768 screens.
 

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I don't like it... yet. I'm quite disappointed –*considering the new look of the bbc.co.uk homepage, I thought this might follow suit. It doesn't seem to have any of the same design details.

They have also redesigned the sport section, and it is worse there. Not as easy to navigate, the different sports aren't as readily distinguishable on the homepage, and the text isn't quite right...
 
iSamurai said:
Today (probably), BBC has just updated their site.

Looks clean and simple, and I must say it's slightly better than CNN's site. I came across this when reading my usual RSSs. Yeah, took them quite some time to update it... before it was the left-aligned site for 1024*768 screens.
Click to expand...

Well let see, I prefer the BBC most especially because it loads MUCH faster.

The new BBC front page clocks in at 362.92 KB, with the low-resolution one a tiny 26 KB. The CNN page was 903.75 KB. I've seen it reach as high as 2 MB before. CNN's mobile page is 53 K. The BBC's pages never reach more than about 10 KB for the mobile edition.

Yes I'm on broadband but still, 1-2 MB doesn't load that quick when it's dispersed between a hundred individual files to load, and yes I've got 3G, but again, why wait 10 seconds to load a full page when I want the whole thing in half a second?
 
My iPod Touch is not amused.

Change for the sake of change. Someone trying to justify his contract.
 
weckart said:
My iPod Touch is not amused.
Click to expand...

It scrolls horribly on my iPod Touch and that's really annoying as I read the news site in bed every morning before I go to work and it has made that a very unpleasant experience for me now :(
 
guifa said:
Well let see, I prefer the BBC most especially because it loads MUCH faster.

The new BBC front page clocks in at 362.92 KB, with the low-resolution one a tiny 26 KB. The CNN page was 903.75 KB. I've seen it reach as high as 2 MB before. CNN's mobile page is 53 K. The BBC's pages never reach more than about 10 KB for the mobile edition.
Click to expand...

The thing determines for me, which site to read is the content, not the loading times :) anyway, you should use adblock plus and block out these bloody ads. they'll then load pretty quick.
 
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