andyface's posts, page 9

The X Factor

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1328268/X-FACTOR-2010-Cheryl-Coles-vote-REHEARSED.html

I hope I'm not the only one that thinks this has been blown up out of all proportion? Pretty ridiculous really, as the sensational headline on this article goes to show...

bbc.co.uk

Nice new-ish live page for the Chile miners rescue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11489439

Never seen the tabbed bar before, looks good.

bbc.co.uk

Totally agree - it happened with the last design aswell, when it first launched they put a lot of thought into them, with some of them breaking out of the box. But that went downhill really quickly when somebody discovered a horrible grunge-y font that seemed to be used all the time. Strange to think how long ago that was.
Can't wait for the new homepage in truth - this screams stopgap to me.

The Channel 5 Thread

I completely agree - I don't see what benefit it will have going back to Channel 5. I highly doubt it will have anything as creative as the current idents - sure, they could blow me away, but I just can't see it happening.
This, for example, is a really creative and unique ident and they'll be lost:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHLDLtORwn8&feature=player_embedded

bbc.co.uk

I found this really strange...
Take a look at the second halves of these two articles, from the BBC News website and the Guardian, around from where they start talking about being born on New Years Day 1992. The number of similarities is striking, and it seems like it has to have been paraphrased.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/07/england-hungary-wilshire-gibbs-capello
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8894651.stm

Is this sort of thing common...? Can't say I've ever noticed it before.

Regarding the navigation bar, yes it does look a little messy and inconsistent at the moment. I don't see what the purpose of the interim bar was, between the bare search-orientated one and the new look piloted by News. Likewise the new homepage that will presumably be refreshed again soon.

bbc.co.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/2012

seems to be full of the new visual style, with the new header too.

bbc.co.uk

I am aware that they've always broken the story up, but for some reason it just seems like they're being separated by sentence, which is really excessive. Paragraphs make it so much nicer to read, with a few sentences at a time. I realise I'm sounding like an old man, which I'm not - it's just something I've noticed.
And regarding the social integration, yes I agree that they should have them there. The Facebook 'Recommend' button just looks like clutter, and could be hidden and only appear when you click on the share button - like most of the other share links. Would look a lot cleaner, and that's what I would have done.

bbc.co.uk

When I first saw the screenshots I thought it looked really nice, but I guess things never look as nice when you're actually using them. Not a huge fan of the horizontal navigation, really, but I guess I will get used to it. The whole thing just seems a little stretched out vertically, and so it's harder to get an at-a-glance view of the news. I think it would probably be better if the 'More from BBC News' section was a bit higher up, because I don't really see why 'Also in the news' has such a prominent position.

I like the implementation of the new global visual language, but I don't really understand why they launched with another new header - surely this is just confusing things? They could have launched with the new standard Barlesque header that they only started rolling out a couple of months ago, and then changed it over with the whole site when the new homepage eventually launches, for example.

There's something about the story pages that doesn't make them nice to read - I think it has something to do with the line breaks between sentences which makes the story look ridiculously fragmented. The white gap between the story and the sidebar makes little design sense, too - I really don't understand the purpose of that when they could have just extended the story text a little. Agree also that the Facebook and Twitter icons stand out a little too much, and should be all under one share button.

I've read a few of the comments on the blog which are the standard 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', 'I will be going elsewhere', 'why are you spending my license fee on this' - but I think that the site has to progress, and nobody ever likes change. It's just a radical change and will take some time to get used to.

bbc.co.uk

There's still something about the new homepage that I don't like, but I can't put my finger on it. I hope they roll out the new global visual language sooner rather than later, albeit with some tweaks to the style that they introduced on the Doctor Who site.

Just noticed that the World Cup pages have been launched on BBC Sport, with the introduction of horizontal navigation at the top. Did I recall seeing somewhere that the sport-wide redesign was to happen in May?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/default.stm

ITV.com Discussion Thread

I would actually say that Channel4.com is miles ahead of ITV in terms of usability and design. I love the Channel 4 website, and it crucially has a really good structure to it - 4oD is implemented into programme pages, and it is not old-fashioned in the slightest. It's got a consistent, modern design that reflects the Channel 4 brand.
ITV.com needs a total revamp. The site at the moment feels so cluttered and there's no overall structure to it at all. There's a clash of so many different styles and there's no coherence. They need to completely rethink it from top to bottom - get rid of the mish-mash of styles and horrendous usability. BBC/C4-esque "programme pages" would go some way towards cleaning it up and making it nicer to navigate and use. I never use the ITV website, unless I wanted to watch something on ITV Player, in which case I would skip the homepage completely.

bbc.co.uk

I would imagine the BBC Sport rollout will be in time for the World Cup in June, although probably before that. New homepage would logically be one of the first things to be changed.

bbc.co.uk

I'm really a fan of this - their existing homepage is a bit clunky, and I absolutely hate the proposed beta homepage that hopefully is never going to see the light of day now.
Really interesting that they're thinking of dropping the masthead - after all of the effort they've gone to getting it on every page, they just drop it? I can see it being implemented in some way, but I really like the clean look that they're going for. I actually suspect that they'll drop the big BBC logo, because it has created some awkward looking designs - particularly the channels, which look really weird by themself without the correctly-positioned BBC logo next to them.
And if that image above is the homepage, I'm a fan. It looks like they're completely dropping the modular look of the current design, although I'd imagine there will be some level of customisation below the fold. A couple of other things that look like they're part of that homepage prototype...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/img/16-type.jpg
This is the bit underneath the feature area? I really like this idea, and it seems really practical - I'd guess 'Discover' would be a random selection of content like the current feature area.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/img/19-type.jpg
I think this is on the right of the feature area, making the stand-out right column that the blog talks about. It looks like it could be live - that would be a really neat feature, and it looks really fresh compared with what we're used to in terms of BBC online design.
I really like the idea of the carousel expanding to the edge of the page aswell - that would look really bold.
I really hope we see something like this as the final design - it could just end up like the really nice ITV.com prototype that ended up as, well...they're still trying to fix it.