BBC for Me
Overview
My goal for my BBC reboot design was to give the greatest prominence to the customizable features while not losing other features that help to indicate the wealth of content available on the Web from the BBC.
The Top
To the current links at the top I added those new kinds of content the BBC is seeking to utilize -- blogs, RSS, podcasts. Seems to me they should be easily available from everywhere if visitors are to take advantage of them. Red is used to call attention to three places: BBC for Me, Today and Search. Search is also given a stand-out shape. We can emphasize search by color and shapes rather than merely assigning it more real estate. I left "Popular and New" as a simple link because I don't know what we get from the current design listing three search terms. If they're interested in that, let them click the link.
Browse
I retained this section. Because I feel it takes up too much space on the current home page, I reduced it to make room for more personal content. I also added a new feature to it; when visitors mouse over the categories, the most popular section in that category is highlighted with a box that comes up. I've shown the effect for Entertainment. They have a chance to go to that popular section, or they can choose to just to go back to the standard "browse" list for that category.
I've put accessibility, text-only and mobile at the bottom here. I realize that may not work as well as having it at the top, however of course with CSS it can still be the first thing that screen readers find. It may still need to be at the top anyway.
BBC for Me
This is what I am calling the main section of personalized content that others are calling "My BBC." I just like the rhyme (which I've also done by calling the "A - Z Index" BBC A - Z). Above this heading is an indication of how many email messages are in my inbox (whichever one I've linked to BBC for Me, gMail, Hotmail, whatever). For myself, I would like to know if I have mail, but I don't necessarily want to be presented with an inbox right off, as that makes me feel like I need to deal with those messages right now before I get to the more interesting stuff.
The "Where I Live" map, which doesn't do anything on the current page except take up space, in my design is a workhorse. Visitors can click on it to get a Google map of their area, and pan in and out or to any side as they wish from there. They can also use the map to find addresses and get driving directions, and whatever other capabilities Google comes up with.
The rest of the BBC for Me section is personalized content, whatever they elect to have appear here. I've shown music, podcasts and blogs, although of course it can also include discussion groups and more if they wish. Each of these headings has "more" to see other content beyond the three to five that appear on the home page, "explore" to see what else is available for them to add to their personal feeds and "change preferences" to do just that.
Additional modules can be added if the user desires. An example is the Flickr bar at the bottom, showing a mouseover effect that allows you to see a photo a tad larger with descriptive info before you click to see it in its full glory on Flickr. This is an example of how to accommodate personalized content that may not fit the format of the BBC for Me column width.
Promotion
The promotion box has been extended to the entire upper region through background use. In this way, it provides a more organic feel and allows subtle changes in the overall page because the upper background would change according to the promotion box. This can be easily achieved by extending the background of the promotion box to the background image behind the BBC logo and "Home". An easy way to keep the page colors from becoming old.
Today
News headlines are assigned a different link color to make this section stand out and look like news rather than a list of links (although of course that is precisely what they are!). London news is here because this fictional user lives in London; users can add whatever local or other news topics they like to this page. For example, I might like to add technology and maybe I don't care about sport (there are some of us, you know). I can do that easily by clicking "Change Preferences".
The TV section shows a mouseover effect that highlights three links from each channel on a background corresponding to that channel's color.
Radio offers the list of channels familiar from the current design, but assigns prominence to the box to launch the BBC Radio Player. The graphic is not the best, but I couldn't find a uniform button of this size. Probably needs a little jazzing up.
Right Column
The far-right column include language listings. I notice that the current page does not have these listings, but I think they're important. Maybe that's because I'm American (well, sort of -- I live in Los Angeles and I didn't vote for Bush, so I'm told I qualify as unAmerican) and we're envious of the BBC's multicultural reach. We get nothing like that here. But it is a BBC hallmark to offer 33 languages and I think it should be right there so that any visitor who comes here feels you speak their language. In the same way, National Information is retained here.
I've also included a Tools section. I know these went out of vogue some time ago, but I think the time has come to bring them back in some fashion when there are so many new advances being made on the Web. Many folks won't have the foggiest notion where to find a news aggregator, nor do they know there's any browser choice but IE (yechh). Also, rather than putting "What is RSS?" on each story block, everything they need for RSS is here. Cuts down on the clutter. Then there are things for the tech-savvy, like BBC widgets, and things for the newbies, like a glossary that explains what's going on here with all these acronyms and weird words they don't understand. I've also heard about these things called viruses that are somewhat of a problem. What do I know, I have a Mac. So maybe if your users are sharing more and trying new things, they should have a quick link to somewhere they can go to protect themselves. Shows them the Beeb is on their side, that you're not just tossing !
them onto the waves of the Web without a life preserver.
Conclusion
So there it is. Have at it. I look forward to your feedback.
- 23 May 2006 12:26
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