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And to think that I worry when I redesign Dayorama. Imagine being in charge of the BBC News website, and its sport equivalent, when they both launched thoroughly revamped new looks this morning.
And then imagine how they felt about an hour later, when the largely negative feedback started to pour into the comments beneath their respective blog entries.
That's the problem with website design. You can user test the bugger until you're blue in the face but, until you lob it over the top of your trench into the sights of a public armed with keyboards for Kalashnikovs, you won't know which way it's going to play.
I think it's fair to say the first day has not been one hundred per cent successful. It didn't help that the content management system the BBC's journalists use was down for longer than anticipated. When I reached the newsroom at 8am, for my first ever shift working on mainstream sports news rather than Olympics stories, I discovered a bunch of colleagues drumming their fingers impatiently, unable to publish to the new-look site. (Not that this particularly mattered today, thankfully, on one of the slowest sports news days in a very long time.)
We all knew the site was going to change this morning, but that didn't stop oohs, aahs and general expressions of surprise when people saw it for the first time. When these things happen you see a Powerpoint slide or two, but none of the journalistic footsoldiers get a working prototype or anything like that. (And why should they? When I redesign Dayorama, the first my esteemed co-authors know of it is usually when they visit the website the next morning...)
With image sizes changing, templates widening and indexes getting an overhaul, there was much shouting of numbers, dimensions and instructions back and forth. Half an hour spent analysing golf's newly published world rankings produced my debut effort:
So, let's pick the last five comments to have been posted to the big announcement blog entry, at the time of writing:
270: Horrible! Horrible!
271: I work in IT and if I treated my customers like this I'd be sacked.
272: The old site was the best on the net. Not a fan of the new site.
273: The current new design is a diabolical mess.
274: Not good.
This is not particularly the vote of confidence I imagine we were looking for. Certainly it doesn't feel great from my point of view that a fair few people have chosen to condemn the site in pretty harsh terms - even if you allow for the fact that usually it's the disgruntled sector of society which hollers from the rooftops, while those who like it or couldn't care less just get on with life.
However, I reckon it's going to win people round. For a start, very wisely, it's been made clear that this is the first stage of a gradual process which far from being done and dusted this evening, will go on for months and months. The new look is only going to improve as the designers learn from the feedback and incorporate ideas, fixes and tricks into future modifications.
Secondly, I can't help but like the new design. I think some commenters make good points about screen size and font size, and the number of stories displayed on the front page, but I still think the overhaul has taken our front page from 2005 to 2008 at precisely the moment the old look was beginning to flag. While many commenters have screamed, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" on the blog, that wouldn't wash if in a few years' time we couldn't do all sorts of really useful things, and it was down to sticking with the same old site.
I'll be honest and say that at the moment, I think the news front page looks better than sport. To my eyes it's settled down more quickly and already looks powerful, vibrant and attractive. It might take a bit longer to get the hang of what works best and how on the sport homepage, but we'll definitely get there. Some of the more vocally disapproving seem to have reacted as though we've "ruined" their browsing experience on purpose when actually, we're all dedicated reporters who love our jobs, are honoured to work where we do, and deeply, deeply want people to enjoy coming to our site to read our stories. Hacking people off is not part of the plan - so expect the new sites to grow and develop.
And I'm not touching Dayorama's look and feel for a good two years at least after today. Learnt my lesson! |
Comments so far: 3
Now i feel bad, being one of the people who does like the new look site (especially the customisable front page) but didn't comment for fear of reprisals from the vocal nay-sayers :(
Sorry!
I also like the new look.
So that's alright then.
I was wondering if you would comment on this, Ollie.
I must say that I quite like the new look, though it took a couple of repeated visits to get used to it. However, I think it is worth it, and I am pleased the BBC has continued to use what I think is Verdana, or perhaps Tahoma, as the main font. There are numerous advantages in using this particular font – Tahoma is the same as Verdana but is more condensed – and they centre on readability both on screen and on paper.
The fact is that Verdana/Tahoma was/were originally designed just over 10 years ago as a ‘new’ font to be easy to read on screen and on paper. It appeared in the late 1990s with newer versions of Windows 95, and Microsoft was involved. The font itself is modelled in some ways on the font used by Transport for London, especially on London Underground.
Verdana/Tahoma was not often used in Windows or indeed online for websites until the turn of the new millennium. I remember using it in the late 1990s when working at my old school – and not all of the computers had Verdana/Tahoma installed!
But, as always, I digress... terribly!
I like websites like Dayorama, the BBC’s and my old school’s for, among other reasons, the small(ish), centrally placed main text. When reading, it is well known that wide reams of text are more difficult to read than narrow groups with small paragraphs whether on paper or on screen. Then again, web design is sufficiently well developed now to avoid any horrific redesigns, and as someone who’s never designed a website in his life – though I have advised! – I should probably not comment too much!
I think the text colour for each headline could be somewhat stronger – it appears a little weak and does not stand out from the page. However, my visual impairment and colour blindness are more than likely to blame, so carry on!
Overall, thumbs up for the BBC website! It lives on my iGoogle homepage alongside Dayorama of course!
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