Reboot bbc.co.uk

BBC Reboot

Dornellas

Intro
-----
In the new Web environment where search is king and the user can find almost anything, content providers need to give users not only the choice in what they read, but the ability to be able to read that content anywhere, whenever they want, while being able to provide that same content if the user doesn't want to make any choices.

With that in mind, we propose several concepts that allow BBC's homepage to give this choice and power to users, without sacrificing the way content is served if the user doesn't want to use any of the functionalities.

About the layout
----------------

We wanted to make it simple, with easily access to all kind of information that BBC provide. And once we are talking about a huge information network, i believe that a huge

highlight, giving the top news, shows, or whatever BBC decides, should be on top of the homepage, side with search area. The main content area is formed by blocks of content,

presented in a clean way.

MyBBC
-----
This is the core of our concept. An RSS based dock or "basket" that can receive and store RSS items of any type of content - articles, podcasts, even Talk threads of a specific news item - and categorize them using both tags (or labels) created by the user, but also built-in tags for each RSS item, as well as 'suggesting' other tags used by other users on that same item.

Any group of tags can be aggregated into a single RSS feed (an "all MyBBC" feed can be automatically
generated) that is created for that user, giving the user the power, if he or she wants to read that content on his or her browser, feed aggregator or even syndicate the content to a blog.

Different types of content can have different types of functionality, for instance videos can be downloaded or played, photos can be "zoomed" to a bigger size for better viewing, articles can have a "search related headlines" feature, etc.

All of this choices by the user will personalize the content that the user sees on the homepage, through either a choice made by the user and/or through a tag analysis of the user's choice of feeds.
Content can even be chosen through a recommendation system based on the choices of other users that "stored" the same feeds on their My Dock.

Of course, at times certain content must have priority over users choices, such an important news headline, but that can be prioritized to "always" show even if it's not on the users choices.
It's a editorial choice made by BBC when the importance of that headline is paramount.

When the user doesn't make content choices in sufficient number, "normal" content is provided for the homepage.

Direct menu
----------
This is a menu with direct links to BBC websites defined by the user. For example, if a user usualy visit BBC 1, CBeebies, Sports and Talk!, he or she can go to Costumize and

define which links want to view in Direct menu.

Tabed boxes
-------------------
There are two kinds of tabed boxes, the main and side column. The center column boxes can be tabbed, and this tabs are defined be the user on TAB menu, while the side column only

have one tab and are used specifically to promote highlights. However, user can always change this content and use to simple features like Weather forecast.

Costumize
---------
This is where the user costumize his features, like the Quick Menu items, which and how many Tabed Boxs want to view in My BBC homepage, which email alerts he or she wants to

receive, etc.

Other features
--------------
Expandable side menu
Auto expandable search box with 'search tips'
Image zoom
My account - where user defines all his or her profile.

• 26 May 2006 15:47