Tucked Away
I like the BBC site - it's stuffed full of interesting goodies, they're just very hard to find.
My re-design tries to address that problem by re-organising the layout of the home page into a sequence of horizontal zones.
Running from the top:
1. Discovery Zone
2. Promo Zone
3. Current
4. Media
5. Personal
The last 3 zones are fairly run-of-the mill, configurable rss feeds, personalised bookmarks, recommendations, etc - nothing new or clever about them really.
The main changes are in the Discovery and Promo Zones.
The Promo section now takes up the full width of the screen and can be animated or host short clips - something along the lines of the BBC 2 homepage.
The Discovery zone is where the cleverbits lurk. For starters the Search box can now be wired up to search any of the BBC's databases, giving easy access to the Broadcast Archive, Musician Profiles, Movie Reviews,... just choose the database from the dropdown and you're away - this should help to make the site more efficient and take some of the pressure off the main search engine.
The A-Z index and Site Directory now load in as dynamic overlying layers - this saves a trip to another page and just helps navigation a bit.
Amuse me, Amaze me, Teach me and Inspire me <-- my favourite features - designed to align with the BBC's aims - to educate, inform, entertain and interact - these additional promotional sections draw from across the BBC, pulling in games, clips, blogs, activities - kind of like the mini channels of BBCi - they would require some editorial input but would put a sense of 'awe' back into browsing.
Ideally there would be four items - something for each age group, with something to watch, to read and something to listen to <- drawing from all of the BBC's output. It would be good to have some 'quick fix' activities, something to talk about and something more indepth.
The content wouldn't have to change daily, but a weekly refresh would be nice - maybe the odd section could be dynamic, just to keep people guessing.
The Indicies and promo panels are deliberately hidden at launch - they're there if you need or want them - but they don't get in the way.
(just uploading it now)
- 26 May 2006 15:12
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