Answering your feedback
| 09:54 UK time, Thursday, 31 August 2006
OK - so you didn’t like all of it.
We've received a lot of comments about the site design changes (discussed here last week). These have been hugely useful, so many thanks. It’s not a comprehensive, scientific sample but - taken together with other feedback we’ve had - there are a few clear messages, so here’s a summary with some replies.
The local news personalisation and 'most read' features have been popular. The greater prominence for audio and video got mixed reviews. The link in the banner is welcomed by some as a way of getting quickly to latest TV bulletins and video news summaries. Others say they don’t use video much on the web so they don’t need it.
We’re not going to completely satisfy everyone, but audio/video usage is on the increase and we believe it’s an important part of what we have to offer - so it’s going to stay well-signposted on the page.
The thing that bothered a lot of you was the fact that the audio/video section in the middle of the page is too obtrusive and doesn’t stay hidden on return visits once you’ve closed it. It’s a good point and we’re going to revisit the way we’ve implemented that part of the page.
Thanks to Dan for pointing out that there’s a whole discussion about the new A/V area . Not sure whether to be pleased or alarmed about this...
As for the new banner, some like it, others think it’s too big or don’t like the way the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News logo is now in the top left rather than across the top. In fact the new banner is about ten pixels higher. We’re using that space to promote popular TV and radio news programmes and our designers felt that any trade-offs about size of the logo would be solved by moving it towards the top left - the most noticeable space on a web site. The logo is more in line with that used by TV News, and we are keen on consistency of the visual brand.
A couple of people lamented the loss of the sport and weather coloured graphics on the left-hand side of the page. We adopted straightforward text links as part of a general move to reduce visual clutter on the page and to bring those links into line with the rest.
News services – can’t we think of a better term for the mobile alerts, news feeds, podcasts etc? I’m afraid we can’t – feel free to make suggestions though.
In answer to some of the other, miscellaneous questions:
• Usage of audio/video shoots up for big stories.
• We’ve forwarded the comments about the weather service on to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Weather site.
• For those who really only want a simple list of headlines there are always the RSS feeds or even which we link to in our banner.
• We changed the ‘Don’t miss’ labelling recently because we thought it didn’t work with all the content – and ‘Features, views, analysis’ is a better description for this area of the page.
And just quickly... yes we did do some user testing before we made the changes, and no we really didn’t lead the site with the story about the risk to the basil crop in Italy, though it did indeed feature on the front page. We try and reflect a wide range of stories on the front page – not just the most serious of the day.
Thanks again to everyone who commented – if your question hasn’t been answered by any of the above and you would still like a reply let me know.
Lastly – aside from those who told us they approved of the whole thing, this was our favourite bit of feedback – from Dominic:
"I hadn’t noticed any changes. Is that a good thing?"
Comments
"We adopted straightforward text links as part of a general move to reduce visual clutter on the page and to bring those links into line with the rest."
In doing so you've reduced consistency with the rest of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's output making it harder for people familiar with those properties to locate them. I imagine the exact amount of extra time spent hunting for the links is quantifiable.
This is also completely contradicts what you said in the previous paragraph: "The logo is more in line with that used by TV News, and we are keen on consistency of the visual brand."
The decision can't be to maintain brand consistency in some places but not others.
Regarding the audio/video usage.
Though I accept that demand for streaming content is on the rise. This is not something that I myself make use of in my usual browsing habits.
As such, I often see story titles on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ news site that are of interest to me, though I do not consume them as they are only linked as audio or video content.
It would be good to see these stories linked textually as well (or possibly to have a preference to only show the textual versions).
Thanks for your response to our feedback. One small thing; you say "In fact the new banner is about ten pixels higher." - the old banner, was 45 pixels high, whereas the current banner is 64 pixels plus the UK/International version links add another 16 or so (I realise they used to be present with the old banner too). It's a large difference, pushing stuff I'm interested in off the bottom of my browser window that wasn't before.
I think the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is doing a fine job at maintaining the website. I do, however, stick with my original comment made last week that the whole website needs a full facelift.
The one big usability issue I have is that all external links on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ site take you away from it. It would be better if they opened in a new window so the original page was still there after I've been off following up a story or article.
I certainly welcome the increase in video and audio, however, as I cannot receive, watch or listen to these at my office, a text version would also be useful. Often I see stories of great interest to me, to discover I can't read them - I have to watch them.
I think the most interesting thing here is that the changes reflect the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's tendancy to lead in pushing new technology, rather than move with it when it's become more established (witness the constant advertisments for digital TV).
Only a very small minority of internet users use podcasting, RSS, video over the net etc. If the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ was aiming to deliver the best possible experience to the majority of users, it wouldn't feature what is extraneous to most users on the home page.
But as the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ often takes a lead in promoting new technologies, it's no suprise to see these links all the page. I don't think that's a bad thing - I eagerly look forward to the day people don't give me a blank stare when I say "have you subscribed to the RSS feed?"!
However, speaking as someone who uses RSS and video feeds etc. all the time, the new links are again as useless to me as they are to someone who never uses such things. I just want a simple link to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ New Player in the left sidebar, so I can open it up and play what I want, and not pick from a small choice of "most popular" clips or the last-broadcast TV and radio bulletins!
I would suggest a text summary of the video stories which can be viewed independently, if not covered elswhere in the news. On many occassions because of bandwidth and latency issues, the video just does not come up (I am India based).
There does seem to be a large amount of 'fluff' appearing on the website at the moment
I've just started viewing more video, so I appreciate the new links. I challenge anyone to find the video weather report on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Weather in less than five links that don't move around the page.
At work though, sometimes I can't listen or watch, so it'd be great to see text alternatives on *all* stories.
I have to strongly disagree with Kyle Gorf's comment. At present, if I want to open a link in a new window on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's site, I can right click on it and select open in new window, shift-click the link, or whatever method the browser I am using allows. If links were always to open in a new window, this choice would be removed from me (I know, e.g. Firefox extensions can fix this, but this shouldn't be necessary). I hate websites opening new windows for me - it's my computer, I'll decide when to open a new window or not. :)
The growing popularity of video on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ site is good, apart from one thing.
What about those of us that rely on subtitles to access ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ content - are there any plans to make them accessible online, as Windows Media Player does have an option for them.
The iMP trial that was run a few months ago apparently had support for subtitles - it would be nice to see this extended to the rest of the site.
Apart from that issue, I agree with the comments, the local news facility is extremely handy.
One thing that I really miss is the page that used to show you the headlines from each day for the last seven days. This was an essential feature for keeping up-to-date when you have not had access to the site for a few days.
Please bring it back!
I don't know if it was brought in at the same time, but what really annoys me is the fact that, when I do a search from the News section, the results I receive are for the whole ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ site, not just the News section. I then have to click another tab to get just the News results. This makes no sense at all, and is extremely irksome.
One comment I sent in, which has not been fully addressed, is that of accessibility.
I have a problem on both the Safari and Firefox browsers (and I imagine other browsers are also impacted as well) with the three 'Show/Hide' sections (Video & Audio news, TV & Radio Programmes and Most Popular...). They do not function correctly when you have preferences set to display nothing smaller than a font size 14.
Initially they functioned really badly - titles cut off at the bottom and misaligned text/pictures. Shortly after I sent in a comment about this I noticed that they were fixed for size 12 text (which is fine for my purposes, so thank you).
However, if set to display size 14+ text, the bottom two of these show text overlapping other text on the right and duplicate titles when expanded.
Other than that I like the new look!
Several people (like me) also wondered why there was still so much empty white space down the right hand side of the screen.
Any good reason?
Some news stories I see and I think 'that looks interesting, I would like to read more', but then I find out that it's an audio/video link and there is NO LINK to a text version of it. So there is no way I can read that story without plugging in my speakers or earphones and all that.
@Seurat: Because not everyone uses the same high resolution (smaller screensize, or personal taste tend to have an impact on this) as you probably have. So to be able to secure everyone the same experience of the website - it is as narrow as it is...
Now - as for the video-content. Isn't it time you started catering for mac-users soon?
RealNetworks is not what it was five years ago - and perhaps it's time to try something new for a change? How about following example of YouTube and the New York Times, and going for a Flash-based system? (Which will also cater for the piracy-concerned amongst you)
Just give us something we can use..!
I don't know if it's because of the video links or because of tweaks to the layout, but there is definitely less text to access from the main page than before, which means it's of less interest than before - I'm sure a couple of months ago I could spend a good 20 minutes browsing links from the main page, but now I'm through it in about five. Please bring back more content!
It will be nice to see some of the changes implemented, when they finally appear.
I just had to register my agreement with this post. I quite often use the search function, especially when I'm referencing the news articles, and it's a bit annoying when you end up with searches for the whole ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ site. It would be much easier if the default was to just search the news stories.
Please, please, please - an option to hide the ticker. It really does my head in. I like websites to be still so I can concentrate on what I'm reading, rather than flashing at me all over the place.
And I agree with people saying there should always be text stories to go with the video ones. The video content is still pretty unreliable for me.
John Arnor says that the oodles of white space down the side is because of different screensizes and resolutions.
Strange that most other sites on the web manage to stretch/shrink content to fill up the whole of the screen.
Presumably the problem is too difficult for the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ to lick. Which is why we're stuck with 21st century content being presented in a 20th century format.
Well - the debate on fixed layouts (like the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's) and fluid (where the content stretches out to the full width of the screen) is an old one in terms of webdesign,- and there are valid reasons for going with either.
In the past, a screen resolution of 800 pixels by 600 pixels was considered normal. Therefore, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, along with most everyone else chose to make their website 800 pixels wide.
Today, however, very few users use anything below 1024 pixels wide. This means that the 'old' layouts (like ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ) suddenly have 224 pixels to spare.
These are what make up all that whitespace.
So why not make the content stretch? Well, the main reason not to, is that you loose a lot of control.
Now, what many websites have done, in recent years (including the beautifully designed ) is to let the design remain "fixed", but not at 800 pixels, rather than at 1024.
John in post 23 ...
You asked:
---
So why not make the content stretch? Well, the main reason not to, is that you loose a lot of control.
---
I answer:
Here's why to make the content stretch:
3.4 Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values. For example, in CSS, use 'em' or percentage lengths rather than 'pt' or 'cm', which are absolute units.
Anyone who can't get this right and working for the content doesn't deserve the title of "web *", really. All they have to do if they're really stuck is go get the Holy Grail code.
I rather like the way that the most popular stories to read and email lists can cause stories to stay in the charts. How long do we expect 'Sudan man forced to marry goat' to linger at the top spot?
And in case you haven't emailed it to someone yet:
Hi there, There have been observations from last few years about ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ outrightly supporting indian stories and turning the worst into 'as positive as possible' and other way round for Pakistan. We had wondered whay it has been happening. Today's article on "³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Outsourcing to India" has given the clue. Well, its all about buisness but truth has also the property to prevail. Thanks.
Two and a half months later and what changes have the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ made to the News website in response to reader comments on the new layout? Very few as far as I can see!
Another example of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ asking what people think, being told it's rubbish, and then ignoring what their readers/viewers have said.
I was very disappointed to read Steve Herrmann's summary of everybody's damning comments (see above). It seems that, despite all the comments, the only thing that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ have done/plan to do is change the headline "Don't Miss"! What a waste of everybody's time in commenting.