BBC launch beta website
Posted by DavidM in Interesting stuff | 2 January 2008
The BBC website is always mentioned near the top of the list of great British websites. Everyone I know uses it for news as well as information on the TV and radio services from the BBC.
The website is clear, contains the right amount of information and always works.
And now it looks like the BBC is upgrading with the launch of the BBC beta website. The main change is a move towards personalisation. You can alter the layout of the page or change content in specific sections - such as which sports you want information on.
Personalistaion is hardly new - most of the main portals tried it a couple of years ago. At the time I heard only about 2% of users bothered with it and most of those changed it once then left it alone. It's an expensive development to make for a few early adopters but with the growth in sites like Netvibes maybe the time is right for the BBC to introduce more flexibility for users to tailor the pages.
As Phil Thompson says in his review of the beta site, "the BBC has put usability and usefulness ahead of a desire to make the website visually stunning and it this kind of thought process which can create a great design".