I don't think the old version needed room "to breathe", I actually liked the fact that it was so full of info, it made it look like a newspaper. Now the "Other top stories" and the "Around the world now" frames could well contain twice the info they're currently showing, which actually feels like a waste.
I'm glad they've kept a very similar layout though, it's always been very effective, much more than cnn.com's one.
Ignoring the awful masthead,
BBC
branding (as if BBC News is somehow not strong enough and the awful 'Live' and 'watch now' buttons I like it!
I do like the wider pages, and the red/ grey design. I think they could work a lot on the story pages, the text seems too narrow compared to all the content on the right, and I'm incredibly worried about how the new look is coming on.
If you took the current idea of data waves, but changed the design and made it white, it might work better. But this new design just looks worried and looks old already (even though it's only just premiered on web and not even on TV yet). Still, I won't reserve judgement til it appears onscreen and, like Asa and others, hope the line 'it looks better animated' is true.
Could this be one of those 'improvements' that mean doing a lot less, supplying less information and being able to cut down on staff?
Other than that it looks like a focus group / marketing consultants production - a bit like the weather graphics not popular but there to stay. What the double masthead is about is anyones guess -it might go in a week or two if there are enough public complaints.
I like the wider, more spaced out design myself. Admittedly there are a few areas where I think there is a bit too much white space, such as the gap above the "ALSO IN THE NEWS" on the right, but in general it looks fine to me. It's just the refresh the site needed in my opinion. Would be nice to see the other pages switch to the wider layout.
Well first of all it's the BBC global masthead - so that has to stay for consistency across all the sites. The second is the BBC News branding logo, so that kind of has to stay too....
It's an argument, but then why does the BBC global masthead not appear on the iPlayer site?
Well first of all it's the BBC global masthead - so that has to stay for consistency across all the sites. The second is the BBC News branding logo, so that kind of has to stay too....
The last version had two BBC logos, remember? Just now it happens to be a bit bigger!
But the new 'global masthead' is pointless, it's just big black space with a search box. A least the 'TV Radio Where I live' links were useful
Well first of all it's the BBC global masthead - so that has to stay for consistency across all the sites. The second is the BBC News branding logo, so that kind of has to stay too....
The last version had two BBC logos, remember? Just now it happens to be a bit bigger!
But the new 'global masthead' is pointless, it's just big black space with a search box. A least the 'TV Radio Where I live' links were useful
Well according to the Editors blog, some sort of navigation will be returning to the header soon. Which is good.
The new BBC masthead aims to strengthen the presence of the BBC brand across the breadth of the whole BBC site. We'll also be adding a button into the BBC banner area that says "Explore the BBC", which reveals links to other parts of the BBC's site.
Still, no reason why this can't be incorporated to a BBC News branded header. It's mad to expect every page to be suited to incorporating an enormous BBC logo.
