ARTICLE NO. 239    December 18, 2007

BBC Beta Homepage

by Alex Schleifer
We’re really digging the new BBC beta homepage. Clean, simple and complete. Not sure how useful the clock is though.

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Alex is CEO of Sideshow , an award winning creative agency. You can read his blog here.
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November 12, 2009
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July 30, 2009
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Sam
December 18, 2007
Does the clock need to be useful? Others have singled it out as ‘cute’. Perhaps it just adds a little personality?
December 18, 2007
Good point. I do find the clock visually appealing and yeah, why not?
December 18, 2007
I agree. The clock definitely sets the design apart. If there were three or four useless widgets around the page, I might point a finger—the clock is tastefully done.
December 18, 2007
The clock def. adds a touch of class. There are some very notable browser issues with the background. I’m not to jazzed about the color switcher in the main ad, and the module headers are bit too web 2.0 for me. BUT hey its a beta and the functionality is there !
December 18, 2007
It’s way better than the current homepage, more readable, better organized, but it doesn’t seems to me to perfectly fit the BBC visual communication style.
December 18, 2007
The clock is a nice reminder of some of the history of the Beeb – it used to be used as a channel ident way starting off back in the 60’s. http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/bbc.htm
December 18, 2007
I like the font size. I do not like the gradient-overload. I find the design a bit too roundy and the colours come across less serious for a site like BBC – tradeoff of being informal vs friendly.
December 18, 2007
It’s just so big! It makes it look childish and too informal – not great for a trustworthy news source.
December 19, 2007
Too much whitespace for me. But this custom stuff is cool.
December 19, 2007
While I agree with Emilio that the beta design doesn’t fit the BBC visual communication style, I am completely drawn to the new design. The whitespace and font size are a welcome relief. I love the contrast and overall layout. It may be more informal, but comparing the current to the beta is interesting. The sharpness of the beta design is quite unique.
December 20, 2007
The whitespace does tend to make you think that it’s a bit content-light, I quite like a lot of content on my customised pages (iGoogle being a good example) but the bold approach here means that it works better with less stuff.
December 18, 2007
I like the ajax panels that allow me to show/ hide, but the overall design seems cluttered to me, and a bit overpowering. Functionality A+, Design C+.
December 18, 2007
The type is way too big. I think it all looks a bit amateur and blog-ish. Much prefer the layout of http://www.rte.ie/news/
December 18, 2007
The whitespace does tend to make you think that it’s a bit content-light, I quite like a lot of content on my customised pages (iGoogle being a good example) but the bold approach here means that it works better with less stuff.
December 18, 2007
While I agree with Emilio that the beta design doesn’t fit the BBC visual communication style, I am completely drawn to the new design. The whitespace and font size are a welcome relief. I love the contrast and overall layout. It may be more informal, but comparing the current to the beta is interesting. The sharpness of the beta design is quite unique.
December 18, 2007
Too much whitespace for me. But this custom stuff is cool.
December 18, 2007
It’s just so big! It makes it look childish and too informal – not great for a trustworthy news source.
December 18, 2007
Although I like the site overall, I have to say that the contrasts don’t work for me: somehow, I find the visual chunking rather confusing, maybe it is because of all the round stuff in between, I guess I am looking for clear lines and can’t really find them. Also, when items are collapsed, they almost disappear on my low contrast laptop screen. On the other hand, it is refreshingly different, and I think that’s what I find attractive about the site. It’s not just another web 2.0 portal place that is screaming for attention, it’s almost like an Apple gadget that tries to convince you with its unique style :-)
December 18, 2007
I like the font size. I do not like the gradient-overload. I find the design a bit too roundy and the colours come across less serious for a site like BBC – tradeoff of being informal vs friendly.
December 18, 2007
The clock is a nice reminder of some of the history of the Beeb – it used to be used as a channel ident way starting off back in the 60’s. http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/bbc.htm
December 18, 2007
It’s way better than the current homepage, more readable, better organized, but it doesn’t seems to me to perfectly fit the BBC visual communication style.
December 18, 2007
The clock def. adds a touch of class. There are some very notable browser issues with the background. I’m not to jazzed about the color switcher in the main ad, and the module headers are bit too web 2.0 for me. BUT hey its a beta and the functionality is there !