Building my rebooted:bbc.co.uk homepage - #5: Feature prioritisation
Now that I've got my list of ideas for my redesigned page, I've done a bit of research, and I'm sure who my target audience is, it is time for me to decide which of the features will make my final page.
There are a couple of different approaches to feature prioritisation used within the BBC's New Media department.
Common is an approach called MoSCoW, where features are divided into -
- those the software or service MUST have
- those the software or service SHOULD have
- those the software or service COULD have - perhaps in a v1.1 iteration
- those the software or service WOULD have - if time and budget were unlimited, or some other obstacle not in the control of the project team was removed.
The must-have features are then built first, and once those are finished, as many of the 'should have' features as possible are built until you run out of time or money.
Another approach is to score the features in a series of categories, and prioritise the build towards those features that score highest. This system is a bit more flexible. Categories might include:
- importance to target persona
- importance to meeting project objectives
- importance to future BBC projects - i.e. maybe some other service will rely on the output of this feature
- likely impact of feature (increased use and reach / press coverage / praise from blogs etc)
- Ashley Highfield has already told New Media Age the service will have this feature ;-)
I've looked at the original ideas I had, and decided that my redesigned page is going to have the following 8 elements:
News & Sport headlines
These will be combined into one panel
BBC iPlayer
The main feature of the page will be an embedded player with access to the BBC's on demand audio and video services
Search
A really, really big search box, leading to a really, really clever search system, alongside a display of some of the most popular recent search terms
A-Z
A list of the letters A to Z (plus 0-9 and special characters) leading through to the BBC's A-Z- Index
BBC Today / My BBC Today / Your BBC Today (the name of this bit probably needs to go to a focus group!)
Features daily editorial content, the weather and travel news
My Bookmarks/My Places
A section where users can save their own bookmarks from the BBC or the web, also displaying a list of recently visited pages on bbc.co.uk
My Conversations
A section where users can see their latest contributions to the BBC's message boards, and possibly their blog comments or message board contributions from around the web
My Inbox
Probably the trickiest to achieve both technically, editorially and policy-wise, I think users should be able to see the latest messages from their web-based email service from the BBC homepage
Now that I understand what I am going to build, I can go into the next phase, providing detailed designs for each of the elements on a technical, interaction and visual level.
- 08 May 2006 19:03
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I understand most of these features (quite a few were on my list too), but 'My Inbox'???
Are you suggesting that the homepage would show you the latest incoming e-mails in your Hotmail account??
ugh, now you pretty much gave away what i can do to make my site more appealing to you guys, which is not a bad thing but consider the people who already handed in their stuff. although im like 1/4 done with my design, im nowhere near the stuff you just mentioned.
>> Are you suggesting that the homepage would show you the latest incoming e-mails in your Hotmail account??
Erm, well, yes actually. Or your Gmail acoount or your Yahoo! Mail account or your AOL account - I'd expect it to be platform agnostic.
These are only my opinions v1q, and I'm not on the judging team.
As I say, although I don't work at the BBC anymore, my ideas are moulded by having worked there for five years. It will be good to see the ideas from people who haven't been working there and don't carry all the baggage.
>>Erm, well, yes actually. Or your Gmail acoount or your Yahoo! Mail account or your AOL account - I'd expect it to be platform agnostic.
I don't see either the logical reasons for providing that feature, or how you would perform it technically. Do Yahoo/Hotmail/Lycos etc even allow [authenticated] third party access to user e-mails?
Frankie
Well, it is all hypothetical anyway, but I see the potential for the BBC homepage to be the place you trust to pull all your web stuff together - and currently the BBC doesn't touch email which is one of, if not *the*, most popular web activities.
The My Bookmarks bit should store non-BBC URLs, the My Conversations bit should aggregate comments you've left on blogs and on non-BBC message boards, and the My Inbox should have your latest email.
Would the third party webmail providers go for it? I don't know. I think the BBC could sell to them the concept that everytime the millions of people use bbc.co.uk they at the same time eyeball their email account, which might lead to more regular logging on to the mail service?
The technology ought not to be too hard - there are plenty of Firefox browser extensions that can do the notifying bit - all the BBC would need to do is cache the title of emails and a link through to the third-party service once it had the details to login to an account.
Having said that all, it obviously strikes you as a very odd idea, so maybe it is!
Isn't it a bit arrogant for the BBC to aim to become everybody's personal homepage?
After all the BBC is (still) fundamentally a content-driven organisation, not a commercial customer-driven organisation.
Shouldn't it be about organising the BBC's content effectively for each user and allowing users to interact with and contribute to that content (interacting with each other during the process).
So why have the ability to access your personal email & bookmarks? There are plenty of sites that do that perfectly well...
DJ
>> Isn't it a bit arrogant for the BBC to aim to become everybody's personal homepage?
I probably need a bigger disclaimer that I don't work for or officially speak for the BBC - any arrogance that everyone in the UK should be using my redesign of the page is purely on my own behalf!
>> So why have the ability to access your personal email & bookmarks? There are plenty of sites that do that perfectly well...
True, but when I *was* at the BBC as part of driving digital take-up in the UK we were always looking for ways to introduce new users to the internet to these kinds of services - it was seen as part of the remit of being a 'trusted guide to the web' - and of course, increase the reach of the BBC's services amongst Licence Fee payers.
That isn't necessarily an interpretation of that remit that everybody agrees with however.
>>>we were always looking for ways to introduce new users to the internet to these kinds of services - it was seen as part of the remit of being a 'trusted guide to the web'
I see where you're coming from.
But are users on the BBC website interested in finding out about the web? That's kinda self referential.
I would expect their goals to be much more in tune with things happening in the real world rather than online (massive generalisation there...).
Anyway as you say, it's about interpretation...
Yeah, I think there was a general feeling within the BBC that bbc.co.uk should be the internet "on-ramp" for the UK.
So, with the persona work for BBCi Search (as it was then) the idea was how could you get someone who kind of *felt* that the internet was a "good thing" for their kids doing their homework *trust* the same internet when they kept reading such bad things about in their newspaper
http://open.bbc.co.uk/reboot/blog/2006/05/building_my_rebootedbbccouk_ho_2.html
I guess some of the features I am suggesting could form an "on-ramp 2.0" for people who have never dragged a bookmarklet onto their links toolbar, or used RSS, or personalised anything, or shared anything online.
I think whether that is a role the BBC should take in the UK is a healthy debate for the BBC to take part in.
'I think there was a general feeling within the BBC that bbc.co.uk should be the internet "on-ramp" for the UK.'
If that's the feeling then the beeb should go the whole hog and offer it's own email service.
Isn't there a beeb.net isp that does email as well.
Just migrate it over to the start page. The bbc is a media/comms company after all.
I might use it but will also stick with Yahoo & Gmail. (bailed hotmail - hated their new beta). Different accounts for different purposes; work, personal, spam etc.