Worldfeeds
Before designing the new main portal for the BBC I wondered: "What would I like to see on BBC.co.uk if it would be my standard media-/news page?" In my end result, I combined individual adaptation with the main features that characterise the BBC.
:: General
Discussion brings the BBC closer to its audience, and this design invites its users to do so in an easy and elegant fashion. By adding 'Discuss' to the top navigation bar and linking from the main articles ('Read & Discuss', 'View & Discuss'), people are persuaded to participate in subject discussions. Recently discussed topics can even be shown on the main page via the ‘Disuss’ Mediafeed. For more personal discussions, the Personal inbox accommodates all necessary functionality.
Header and Footer
In the header, the recognisable logo is accompanied by, main links, date, accessibility links (text only, pda, language, font size) and an easy, but advanced, search bar. With the search bar you can look for everything or specific media (video, audio). To enhance the retrievability of the BBC web information, a catalogue is provided at the bottom of the page to give direct access to various parts of the BBC network.
Newsticker
Below the header you find an interactive newsticker that will present international news headlines. Users can quickly glance through them or click on the map to instantly see news topics related to a specific location. As expected from our individual centred approach, people who find this distracting can minimise the newsticker. Users who do not have Flash running will automatically get a textual version of the newsticker.
Mediafeeds
Need to customise your own media-interests? Mediafeeds is ideal for this task. By default, you see 'Newscast': encompassing online news broadcasting (new & popular) and the BBC TV channels. Here it is possible to directly save broadcasts for later use as podcast or by clicking 'Alert/Mediabox' you can save them towards your online Mediabox (see My BBC) and/or instantly send it to friends or your blog. Below 'Newscast' space is reserved for different mediafeeds: you can choose feeds such as 'Sport' and 'Health', which display news and articles (new/popular), or Media feeds such as 'Discuss' to display recent discussion topics. Adding specific 'articles' from these mediafeeds to your 'Mediabox' (or sending them around) is possible on the articlepage itself. Via 'Add/edit content' you can specify what is relevant for you and in which order the media feeds will be displayed. Evidently, it is also possible to get RSS feeds on each specific media feed selection.
BBC Radio
On the right you have access to BBC Radio. You can select a channel, see what's playing and tune in. In some cases you can save a show as a podcast, which will be added to your 'new podcasts' list as soon as it is available.
My BBC
This is your personal information section. In order to personalise even further, you can customise the items you want to see here (Media box, Weather, Traffic, Calendar). At the top you will find your personal inbox displaying new messages (Mediabox alerts people send or parts of discussion topics) and newly available podcasts. The 'Mediabox' displays your saved articles, videos, audio files, etc. From here you can send saved medialinks to your friends or connect them to your personal blog. For planning next weekend outdoors, you have a clearly displayed local weather report. And last but not least you have a Calendar to your disposal, displaying your appointments (events), favourite shows (tv & radio) and giving alerts when desired.
:: A final word
Personalised media and the ease to find relevant content are major themes that cannot be omitted in the future BBC starting portal. To maintain the BBC’s integrity and independence, I have omitted almost all external Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 tools displaying textual user generated content, such as appointments, can be integrated. Web 2.0 tools displaying general or visual content, such as maps or photography, will not be integrated.
- 16 May 2006 13:55
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By far the best entry so far, very well done.
It looks great, fits a lot of content in, has room for promos, appears simple to customise, and has all the hallmarks of a great 2.0 website. I particularly like the New/Popular/X on each content box.
Constructive criticism:
(1) The large orange tabs could be organised differently - news&sport could go together, perhaps replaced by 'where i live'
(2) Quite graphics heavy, and I'm not sure how accessible it will be
(3) BBC Radio could be replaced/supplemented with a list of subscribed podcasts (from inside and outside the BBC)
(4) The weather section could be enlarged to incorporate other local items such as news/sport/discussion
(5) I notice that the main promo/news item is without video, whereas the secondary news item below does have video. Perhaps this main section across the top can just be promo (not news), leaving the news in the video-mediafeed below. If its just a promo space then it might be made smaller, giving more space to other items.
(6) I particularly like the Calendar for TV/Radio/Events - fantastic. Could it incorporate events from calendar fees e.g. google calander or an uploaded ical/outlook calander?
(7) The mediafeed section, which houses the main content boxes, looks like it has an rss feed. Perhaps the feeds could be for the individual boxes. You've also put 'add/edit' content. Would this include content from outside the BBC? This could really make sure that users choose the BBC as their homepage, as they could add in bits of their old homepage (e.g. check my Gmail/workmail?).
Great job.
Thats my fav so far ;-)
nicely done!
At last. A decent design!
Looks good... Well done :)
Fantastic...but then you are a pro!
I agree, its by far the best design here. I really hope you win. Good Luck!