The new bbc.co.uk BBC homepage
December 10, 2007
Lots of this about the internet up your ego , keith , and martin B. But now it’s officially visible and I’ve had a play with it, here’s my thoughts, God it’s weird to experience this from the outside.
• I like the bigger promos, the mixture of picture promo (are they still called that?) and traditional.
• In many ways it reminds me of a fancy version of Gateway - the BBC’s Intranet - which also had fold up/down sections.
• I’m not sure about the all page colour change - but at least it gets away from that f**king cyan/blue
• I like the ‘display options’ thingy, High viz, comfort, increase text size, fully customisable - content and layout are separate.
• I’m glad the hideous logo’s gone, after 4 years! That was some of the worst designing I’ve ever seen (I’m looking at you Fitch!) and I hated it from the moment I saw it. At the time anyone who objected to it was taken outside by Marketing stormtroopers and shot through the head.
• The Sin Bin has gone, the daft double search has gone, the contains-no-tools toolbar has gone. Hell it’s all gone, Finally. I love it because it’s a clean break, it’s all new. It seems to be based on functionality and users needs rather than empire building, marketing and which petal head has the biggest genital organ. Maybe this is because dept heads aren’t there anymore, are they? Isn’t it all ‘Vision’ now?
And now to my only real criticism, and it’s this. The BBC could, and should, have done this two years ago. I also wonder what this project was like to work on? Was it fun? Were their tears? Did the opinions of tech, editorial or design fall on deaf ears or were they headed? Was it run like the iPlayer project by external powerdroids or was it a small agile team of talented people and Sven style light touch management? I want answers Beeb people!
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D-Construct 2007
September 9, 2007
Friday saw me hop down to Brighton for the D-Construct User Expeience conference. The day got off to a bad start when I didn’t get my morning coffee until 10am. Then it got worst… Jared Spool was the first speaker. On he comes… loud… talking about MP3 players. He then goes on for 20 mins about the iPod. . . about how easy it is to use, about what a great experience it is. I look around at all the attendee’s and over 80% are typing what he’s saying on Apple Macs. Listening to him go through the numbers of how many iPods have been sold since 2001 is possible the dullest thing I think I’ve ever seen at a conference ever.
He then goes on to talk about Netflix vs Blockbusters DVD postal rental service. fails to mention LoveFilm.com or any UK version. He says two things towards the end that I bother to write down. 1. ‘You’ve got to know what you’re doing’ and 2. ‘Don’t underestimate the cultural differences’. I think he failed on both those points. After eating into the first coffee break time with a stupid magic trick I meet some of the other delegates outside for a quick chat. A girl from Ability.net is equally livid. ‘that’ she says ‘was Conference spam’. I’m incline to agree. I’d never been to a Mac Keynote… until today, I’ve never wanted to heckle and a geek conference, until today. I meet Matt Jones who’s a little nicer, he says ‘that’s the presentation he gives to CEO of large multi-nationals’. Personally I think he’s totally mis-judged the audience.
Up next, is Peter Merholz who starts brightly looking at the early history of Kodak (which I knew all ready) but then throws up a slide about products being ‘cool’ and my blood chills. And sure enough he’s off talking about the iPod. He then talks about Tivo, another product/service which we’re all familiar with and yet isn’t available in the UK. My brain switches off till lunch.
Leisa Reichelt takes the stage and talks about hwo to organise projects, it’s all the standard things ’small groups’, ‘quick iterations’ ‘washing machines are good’, etc. Only as well all know projects just don’t happen like that, do they BBC iPlayer folks? Anyway, I quick like her hand-drawn post-it note slides.
A swift pint and a sandwich at the Pub next door and I’m expecting much better stuff from the afternoon. Up comes Cameron Moll, interaction design from the LDS Church (Mormon) in Salt Lake City - where’s this going I wonder? Alas he also mentions the iPod, but at least finds time to look at a Dyson advert as another example of ‘good design’.
It’s not until after 3pm that anyone British takes the stage. George and Denise do a nice relaxed sofa chat about the early histories of B3ta and Flickr. Denise has a nice phrase of turn ‘we did what’s now called viral marketing but back then was just called fucking about’. Neither of them mention the iPod.
Quick break and I’m expecting great things from ex-beebers Matt Webb, up next, and Tom Coats. Matt runs through the A-Z of the experience stack, though I’ve seen his ‘ windows 3.1 buttons / antelope’s belly’ story back in 2005 when I was at the BBC. But he’s delivering good ideas statements and observations in quick and relevant matter.
Tom Coats takes the stage, and declares his talk to be 100% iPod free, and is his usual animated self, his main thesis is ‘you’re product is not your website. It’s everywhere it touches the network’. Which is true.
Then it’s to pub, where I’m in the food queue next to one of the organisers who asks me what I thought of it.
Far too much focus on the iPod as the only example of good design which is too lazy, there’s like a billion others, the wheel, the brick, the bic biro, and I say this as a ipod and MBP user. Difference in style: the American’s gave us preeesentations the Brits either chatted or gave us a lecture. By that I mean that I found the American’s to slow and lacking substance, that room was full of the UK’s Alpha geeks, folks who can absorb information at quite a high bit rate. I wanted zipped-up concentrated information I’ll still be thinking about days later, that’s what conferences are, some of the speakers were operating on 56k. Mid way through Jared’s talk I wanted to shout out ‘please tell me something I don’t know!’. And it’s not like I’m a tech conference whore too, I don’t eTech or Future of Web App’s, I maybe take in a couple a year.
Finally he asked me if ‘had I paid for it myself (£100) would I be disappointed?’ And I’m afraid I answered ‘yes, slightly’. Still, rather that just moan about it on here, I said I’d be delighted to feed into next years conference. We shall see.
Note: I rather liked Brighton, 50 mins to Victoria… living by the sea. tempting.
Restaurant websites often undercooked
July 9, 2007
152 Aldeburgh - Tel: 01728 454594
Why sub-editing or (even a spell-checker!) is important… I hope their cooking is better than their spelling (and it’s good according to this). The missing hyphen is forgivable*, but a restaurant that can’t spell restaurant! First impressions and all that…
Also the wines page could do with a spruce-up, as it currently says ‘Andrew recommends…… House wines.”
It’s a shame that after almost 10 years of the ‘digital age’ in the UK most small businesses still suffer from poor web presence. That’s fine when you run a hardware store or MOT garage where people just need your name, location, opening hours, and a phone number, but restaurants should make a little more effort. After all, they’re selling an emotional experience and the promise of a good time. Small places like this are often labours of love with a single owner - what Americans would call ‘Mom and Pop’ places. If you go in most nights you’ll see the owners working there. It’s this personality that more smaller operators should make more of, I think, even if it’s a big cheesy grin photo and some nice welcoming words.
Here’s the website for the Hungry Monk in Jevington, Sussex. Whilst it’s not going to win any design award and hardly uses cutting-edge web tech, it does have all you need to get a sense of the place. Address, directions, reviews, menus, prices, and some images of where you’ll be eating.
For bigger, more urban places, there’s other things you can do to capture web users. Restaurant Magazine had an article on restaurant podcasts and blogs the other month - even if it’s your head chef chatting about what’s in season, or taking a delivery from a supplier, or the head waiter talking about a visit from a celeb. Yes, it’s a lot more effort than having a continuing ad in the local rag… but those days are gone.
*A friend once saw ‘Hand cut skin on chips’ on a menu, all without hyphens.
My first go on an iPhone.
July 4, 2007
Not wishing to add to the iperbole but a visitor to Channel 4 scored maximum “ooooo-aaahh”points today when he showed off his 8gig iPhone to the new media dept after a meeting. I got to have a go, the pinch/push nav is a no brainer, the screen is bright and clear. I typed out ‘the quick brown fox…’ it came out ok. There was a slight ‘Newton‘ moment when Euan typed his named and it came out ‘Wuan’. Another thing was the girls were just as smitten as the boys, this is a key reason why the ipod sold so well I think, because it was quite gender netural. (See here for a female perspective of the iPhone.)
Strawpoll: Everyone wants one in this office, … they’ll sell like hotcakes on a cold day I reckon, despite the low spec camera that can’t shoot video.
Barclays eagle causing a flap after 317 years
June 19, 2007
More logo bafoonery with the news that Barclays are to drop their ‘Tutonic looking’ eagle logo lest it offend the mild mannered Dutch who proabbly couldn’t care less. Ditch it because you don’t like it, or that you want to create someting new, but don’t ditch it because it may offend… customers are offended by sloppy service and outrageous bank charges, not this surely?! Also, there’s a reason for the eagle, from Barclay’s history page “1728 Freame and Gould move to 54 Lombard Street at the sign of the Black Spread Eagle.”
Furthurmore plenty other country in Europe neigh the world has used the eagle at somepoint, including the dutch town of Berg en Terblijt.
Looking at the list of FTSE 100 top 30 Co.’s with a large market cap it’s worth noting that Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Barclays, Lloyds, and BAT are the only ones to use anythign from the natural world in their branding…
| 1 |
Royal Dutch Shell |
 |
| 2 |
BP |
 |
| 3 | HSBC |  |
| 4 | GlaxoSmithKline |  |
| 5 | Vodafone Group |  |
| 6 | Royal Bank of Scotland Group |  |
| 7 |
Barclays plc |
 |
| 8 | HBOS |  |
| 9 | AstraZeneca |  |
| 10 | Anglo American |  |
| 11 |
Lloyds TSB |
 |
| 12 | Tesco |  |
| 13 |
British American Tobacco |
 |
| 14 | Rio Tinto Group [1] |  |
| 15 | Diageo |  |
| 16 | BT Group |  |
| 17 | Xstrata |  |
| 18 | BG Group |  |
| 19 | BHP Billiton [2] |  |
| 20 | Aviva |  |
| 21 | Standard Chartered |  |
| 22 | National Grid |  |
| 23 | Unilever [3] |  |
| 24 | SABMiller |  |
| 25 | Prudential |  |
| 26 | Reckitt Benckiser |  |
| 27 | Imperial Tobacco Group |  |
| 28 | BAE Systems |  |
| 29 | Scottish and Southern Energy |  |
| 30 | Centrica |  |
| 31 | Marks & Spencer |  |
| 32 | Cadbury Schweppes |  |
| 33 | Scottish Power [4] |  |
| 34 | Land Securities |  |
| 35 | Legal & General |  |
Big Brother Eye Logo.
June 1, 2007
There have been a few comments in the Channel 4 feedback log questioning whether the Big Brother eye design is in anyway influenced by or an homage to Madeline McCann’s eye condition.
This years BB logo was designed months ago as far as I know, the master version I’ve got has a created and modified date of 13th April 2007, Madeline went missing on the 3rd May.
I remember seeing designs for it as far back as January and if anything I think the designers were aiming for more of a futuristic test card feel with colour and gradations of tone (though the test card is a BBC thing). You can see this if you look at the animated version.
So the short answer is no, it’s just coincidence.
Surely this is nothing more than the human ability to see patterns and relationships in things and to make imaginative leaps in context. It probably came in useful on the Plains of Africa for distinguishing lions from the grass. However we now no longer need that skill much, so we now use the ability to make wild speculation that comes with the silly season that is BB.
Take a Test - Photoshop Test
April 17, 2007
Link: Take a Test - Photoshop Test.
I got 9/20! That is HARD! Mind you, I reckon it’s not very fairly done. Look at this for example..
To move a layer down in the stacking order in the Layers palette, you could…
1. use Layer>Arrange>Move Down
2. use the Layers palette pop-up menu and choose Send Backwards
3. Command-[ (left bracket) (PC: Control-[)
4. Option-] (right bracket) (PC: Alt-])
eh? Or you could just click on it and drag it down, as using two key shortcuts means taking the stylus of the tablet. Photoshop is bonkers really… there’s like a 100 ways to drive it, my mate Jaypod has the menu bar set…at the bottom of the screen! URGH!
LL928 - Exploring the Galaxy at Christmas
December 30, 2006
Christmas, at me Mum’s. mrs e away at her folks as her mum wasn’t well. So I’m home at my mum’s house for the first time in ages. And what’s Christmas for if not deciding at 11.30 at night after a few beers that you really should listen to your inner geek child and get your old Lego out, download the instructions off the internet using only your mobile as an (expensive) connection and see if you’ve still got… ‘the knack’.
Me: Mum where’s my Lego
Mum: Upstairs in your sister’s old room
Me: runs upstairs Where about’s?
Mum: In the wardrobe.
Me: Errr, No, that’s quite clearly her ‘Earth’ Lego, where’s mine?
Mum: I don’t know, I think you gave it away?
Me: Never! It must be up the loft.
Mum: (sigh) Be careful!
So there I was, ladders out the garage, banging around up the loft nearly putting my foot through the ceiling, and right in the corner.. there it was. found it! Ahhh, nothing on Earth sounds quite like the sound of Lego being tipped out of a box…
I had a couple of Lego sets, mainly space including the Star Fleet Voyager, and one of the Base ones, as well as some of the first castle Lego, but my pride and joy was LL928, aka the Galaxy Explorer . Widely regarded as the finest Space Lego set ever, a classic piece of Lego design; when sets still allowed for customisation and play. I think I got it for Christmas in either ‘81 or ‘82, and 24 years is along time, would I still have all the pieces, or had the ‘Great Hoover’ taken them forever? So, with pixellated plans downloaded (from here) I set off.
I get most of the super structure built before hitting a problem. I’ve lost or broken the hinge to the ramp at the back. I can find one bit, but not the smooth bit. Ah well, a bit of modification is needed. It was nice to see all the old stained pieces again, some broken or stained, some with teeth marks in, or play dough squashed into them.
By this time I’m missing some of the black and yellow wing markings as well as the top window piece an a grey rocket thruster thingy. I decide to go for the ‘battle damaged’ look, with heavy modification.
1am ish - Finished! Blimey that took longer than I thought! I’m sure I used to be able to build this in about 20 minutes?
Not too bad as it goes. I was missing a grey wing, which I replaced with a white one from the Star Fleet Voyaget set, and some other bits had to be grey not the original blue, but all told I think I used to look after my toys as a child rather well. Anyway, I went to bed content and happy.
More pics on Flickr for you real brickheads. It’s on eBay for £120 boxed in mint condition!. And here’s the T-Shirt.
i>Player and How to make a TV programme #1
June 28, 2006
Had a session entitled ‘Play’ yesterday headed by Tony Ageh and centred on the future of the i>Player. it was interesting in that a lot of the group thought tagging was going to be one of the best things about the project, but as Matt Locke pointed out, Flickr and de.licio.us don’t really care if you tag stuff.. we do. The other thing about the i>Player is that people believe it’s a bleeding edge technical project, it’s not really. It’s a series of products and services from other companies cleverly put together to achieve an objective. What it is I think is a (and I hate this phrase) ‘hearts and minds’ exercise convincing people, particularly BBC Execs and programme makers, that this is a good thing.
I’ve had some meetings with telly people recently (see below) and blimey the 30 or 60 minute programme format and 8pm slot is hard coded into their DNA. A lot of them just do not get the internet, and those that do just see it as another ‘channel’ to broadcast on or somewhere to host character biogs. They believe in broadcasting in the classical sense, they work in a highly top down ‘this is my vision’ way, they are extremely professional and driven. Qualities that were needed to get things made right? And they probably still are, but not all the time. I wonder who’s going to be the first cross genre multi-skilled Producer to make something 42:78 long that only goes out on the player, while TV gets say a 30min version. Think directors cuts or multiple endings. The leap from black & white to colour TV was obvious, programme makers and the public could literally see the benefit. I want to see the i>Player actually affect how programmes are made and structured, and that perhaps takes a new approach to content…
Which leads us on to this from the big boss at the end of one of his recent mailshots..
We need to preserve the level playing-field between BBC and independent producers, and to find ways to stimulate cross-media thinking across both production and commissioning to make sure that we keep pace with what our audiences expect of us. New Media and Technology will clearly also be vital to helping us do that.
I reckon that could have said ‘New Media PEOPLE will clearly be vital…’ Sounds like a challenge, so I’ve taken it up. Yup, you heard it here first, (unless you work near me) I’ve been working on a pitch for the past 6 months and am in the process of talking to commissioners about getting it made. Can’t say what it is exactly yet. But if it gets the go ahead it’s gonna be ace….
World Cup Mode Design Work and Feedback
June 14, 2006
Some of the design thinking behind the World Cup Mode
We dropped the SPP as a container for the switch for a number of reasons. 1. If you want it off, you want it all off. 2. The semantic way readers scan the page meant the on/off mode had to go under the promo, other wise it would have read the promo, then the whole browse column then the SPP etc.
Match mode was going to have GEO-IP served broadband console links, but we couldn’t adapt Sport’s GEO-IP look up. Also people seem to have found the broadband content pretty well. A few more examples are on Flickr. One thing that caused is a bit of an issue was just how to we actually promote it on the homepage.
This is what I jokingly put together first, using a seldom seen ‘top’ promo
I liked the phrase ‘cupificate’ in a E4 tellybox kind of a way, anyway, then me and a writer went through a 100 versions of this
The trouble with this is, you’re not actually offering a choice, you’re offering ’switch it on’ or… nothing. In the end we went with a traditional EE promo, and did a ‘credit squeeze’ and put a big fat showy jpeg in.
Feedback wise it’s been a great success too. Here’s a top line of some of the feedback we’ve received from the first weekend of ‘world cup mode’. Again thanks to Doug our (ex) feedback guru.
We received 234 emails of which 50% came on Friday with Saturday and Sunday getting roughly 25% each
People that said “Thank you” “Great Idea” “I am going to use this” etc about WCM
Total comments 141
People who like football/WCM ON 18 (12%)
People who dislike football/all sport/WCM OFF 68 (49%)
People who just said thanks 55 (39%)
3 people said this was a bad idea (one mentioned a hatred of football)
1 person asked why we assumed everybody liked football missing the point of why we are offering an ON/OFF switch
2 people supported the breaking news policy
10 people said they just dislike football
11 people left non-football comments
What else should we cover
22 people said we should also do this for Wimbledon
About 10 asked for cricket
14 asked us to provide a switch for TV, mostly on Saturday when out of 48 hours of BBC1/BBC2 TV coverage only 4 hours was football related
Other bbc.co.uk coverage
8 people wanted Spring Watch updates
15 people wanted Doctor Who
about 10 people said we should promote the latest BBC TV and Drama
7 Want more live music coverage
~5 (I lost count) culture/arts/books etc
~5 want alternative TV schedules during the games
Finally 1 person asked for 24/7 Archers
_____
So the predominant feeling is ‘well done, I’ll have it off please’. Which is a positive negative, but a good thing. This information has been invaluable as it’s allowed us to throw out the schedule and put together editorial promotions based on what users have asked for. Today’s promo is a result of that. Ideally I’d like to have Mrs Jones of Cheadle asked for X in today’s promo.
Another success has been not having to do any world cup promotions like we’ve done in the past. This project has really allowed our small team to concentrate on what we do best, putting together distinct editorial messages from the best bbc.co.uk has to offer, and leave the juggernaut that is dealing with the World Cup to the sports gang, there’s over 20 of them working 24 hours a day here and in Germany, there’s four of us working 9-5. Hooray for working smarter!
Where next? Well, this would be great for Wimbledon or the cricket, but we can only have one mode in the space at one time, due to the horrendiously complex de-duping of the headlines against each mode. But it would be for non sport things too, Glastonbury springs to mind. Who knows….? Though if England get to the final, well then we’ll have to do something really special.
