BBC News Website’s Revamped Interface Design Part – 1
The BBC News website has long been a popular source of news on the web. A revamped interface design, the “biggest rethink of the design of the site since 2003”, has now provided the website with improvements that increase the usability of the website. This redesign is a great example of how an already great interface design can be improved upon by looking at key usability issues. It must be said that users of CNN’s website will no doubt realize that BBC’s new interface design looks a lot like cnn.com. But rather than chastise BBC’s re-designers as clueless copycats devoid of creativity I think they should be praised for sticking to great interface design and usability principles. A mistake a lot of interface designers make is in designing a work of techno-art instead of a functional website or software application. Remember that your interface design should be usable by all and sundry and not just those with degrees in computer science.
The most startling change to the BBC’s interface design is moving of the navigation from the left of the screen to the top. This decision frees up a lot of space for actual news content and makes sideways scrolling (which many users find frustrating) more redundant. Stories that are new now stand out as they are marked with a red “NEW” badge. Below the days’ main stories is a section where users can navigate stories according to geographical location. This area is differentiated from the rest of the page by using a stark color scheme that stands out from the rest of the page. Clicking on a single story, one can easily share stories via Facebook, Twitter and the like. This is possible from both the top and bottom of the story so that users who scroll all the way down to the end of a story do not have to scroll all the way back up just to share. Had that been the case then the number of stories from the BBC website being shared on social networks might be reduced. Good usability practice here as well.
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