Now, don't get me wrong, lots of the BBC's many, many digital projects are fantastic. But other times they've made a colossal camel. ("A camel is a horse designed by committee" is one of my go-to phrases. Also see David Mitchell's excellent soapbox on false collective agreement).
The latest example of this is the new BBC homepage, currently in beta. It's certainly a radical departure from the current site. But that doesn't make it right.
Designed for tablets
The BBC have stated that the site was design for tablets first, and this would be their ongoing approach with other sites. Now, let me ask you, which of these three devices do you think most people use to visit the BBC: computer, phone or tablet? I'll hold my hand up and admit I've not seen any hard numbers, but I'm going to take an educated guess and says it's not the tablet. "But wait!" I hear you cry (Facebook "listen" button again) "they're planning for the future when more people are on tablets". Fair point, but they've not actually designed for tablets. They designed for the iPad.
Don't believe me? Check the fold (the furthest down the page you can see on your browser without scrolling). On the iPad it works great, but on widescreen tablets (as most other tablets are to help distinguish them from the iPad) the fold hides the middle strip of navigation below the screen. To make it worse, the BBC have deliberately made the page 2 screens high. 2 iPad screens. So when you flick to scroll, unless you use the gentlest of taps, the page jumps up to the second screen of content. Which now hides the middle nav above the viewing area.
"Yes" you reply "but most people who have a tablet have an iPad". True. At the moment. But look at the growth of Android. iPhone used to rule the roost. Not any more. Do you really think the iPad will stay in the lead long term? Over the next couple of years we're going to see more and more devices that take bigger and bigger chunks out of the market.
Where does this leave the BBC? Well, we've got a site designed for a type of device that isn't yet that widely used, but specifically designed for the most common version of the device right now and not what could be (Amazon Fire anyone?). A solution that suits few people now and few people later.
Controls
Ah, now here's where things get even more confusing. People swipe when using tablets. They like swiping. It makes them think they're performing a spell on a magical book in front of them, conjuring up wonderful and amazing content. And the Rebecca Black Friday video.
So, how does the big carousel on the new BBC homepage work? You have to click the arrows at the side to scroll. And on an iPad you have to click twice. Yes, that's right, twice. The arrow has a rollover state that tells you you're on page 1 of 3, and changes it to a nice blue colour. Guess what touchscreen devices can't handle. If you said "Rollover states" you win a prize! (If you said "juggling flamingos" you're also right, but I don't think you're helping much with this conversation). Somehow, the BBC have managed to bring it over to the iPad by forcing you to press the arrow once to see this visual delight (HTML5 really needs a sarcasm
Now, there is a way around this. A nice way. Make your homepage exactly 1 screen high and have horizontal scrolling. Then use media queries to re-layout your page for computers, sticking blocks of content in a carousel and grouping feeds below it.
Only wait, before we do that, we need to take a look at what that content actually is.
Content
The heart of your site. What you want your users to be able to access, enjoy and share. So why dear BBC, do you feature iPlayer content in your tablet designed homepage that won't play on an iPad? Yes, you can use iPlayer on a iPad, but only if you download the specific app. Click on one of the iPlayer links in the new content carousel and you're take to a single page telling you to get the app. Now, this isn't entirely the BBC's fault. The standard iPlayer needs flash, which iPads don't run (nice one Steve). But the BBC shouldn't be mixing together content that simply won't work on different devices, especially on the device they say they're focusing on.
The rest of the content in the carousel is almost as confusing an experience. There is a hierarchy there, but you have to look hard to see it. A first glance it looks like a mish mash of news, sport, iplayer and more. There is a little more logic to it than that, but having two blocks of content labelled "Headlines" and hoping someone works out that red=general news and yellow=sport isn't making things easy for your users. Go to slides 2 and 3 of the carousel and there's even less structure, with content on vastly different topics sitting alongside each other. Not only does this make it hard to find what you're looking for, it hides entertainment, nature, food and other content.
There's a lot to be said for serendipity, but (and for once an honest, non-sarcastic question) do people go to the BBC site with no idea at all about what they're looking for or their interests? With something like the TED talks this approach works as all the units of contents are 10 minute videos and they're all linked by the theme of telling you something interesting about a field you may previously have known nothing about. I don't buy that users see the BBC in the same way. And I'm not convinced the BBC do either...
Layout
...because if it was pure serendipity, why is there a very clear and useful "Explore" sub nav, and "What's on" TV and Radio ticket on the page. Only they're in the bottom half. Below the fold. To the point where you don't even know there's something below the carousel until after you start scroll. When you think BBC, what first comes to mind? TV? Radio? News? Guides to interesting and, critically, broad topics? My guess is you'll think of all 4, and probably in that order. So why are 3 of these topics buried so low in the page?
I'd love to meet the UX designer who said, "Ah, I see all our site content can be grouped into just over a dozen categories, perfect for sub navigation and guiding a user through the wealth of articles, tips, tools and more. Now, let's stick it in the bottom right corner of the page." It's probably the same one that said, "Millions of people watch and love the BBC. We should tell them what they can watch right now. Let's hide it below the height of most people's screens and give then no indication at the top that there's more information below." Feel free to picturing me slamming my head into my desk at this point.
As you can probably tell, I'm not impressed. But, after all that, it does look pretty. And that's all that really matters, isn't it....
