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backstage.bbc.co.uk | open.bbc.co.uk/reboot - Homepage redesign competition

Our goal in building this project was to keep many of the familiar functions of the bbc site, but add a few extras.

We also aimed to make sure that most of what we added actually functions as a working page.

The key features added are:

AJAX search functionality - This utilises the new BBC search, providing fast results from the BBC, its media clips, and recommended sites on the web. If user does not have javascript enabled, they are passed straight through to normal search page. From the AV tab, media can be launched directly, then the tab closed, preventing the need to go via an intermediate search page.

New TV and Radio schedules - Ajax schedules are displayed for users with javascript enabled. This will degrade to a normal now/next should javascript not be enabled. Ajax schedules allow further information on any show, a search of listings that have been cached, and a skip to time function. On the further details for the show, there is a link to the BBC programme archive. It is also intended that when BBCPlayer is launched, a link from the show information can cause the player to launch any programmes available from past 7 days. An icon would be added to listings to advertise this availability, and it would be promoted in the promotion box at the top of the page.

Mapping - The map by default shows weather, travel and news (the latter may not be accurately localised) as close as possible on the map. This allows you to get an overview of traffic problems at a glance, and to expand weather details for your area. Functionality on the map will be expanded shortly to enable further forecast details, as well as a postcoding search. This area is intended to degrade to a simple 5 day forecast output for london (or a localised area if logged in), plus the traffic for that region. Photos will be added by a tab below the map when available.

News and Sport - News and sport have been expanded via their RSS feeds. You can now drop down details for each news item which shows further description of the news story, and the ability to search for blog posts based on it via technorati.

Interactive box - A new box has been added showing content on which users of the bbc site can interact. Latest blog messages, latest posts on action network, and have your say are all shown, along with further details of their content when dropped down. A basic messageboard index is also provided.

Top bar - The top bar is an important part of navigation on the site. Ours is somewhat simplified, and more importantly, finally has news and sport added, as these are some of the most important areas.

Design - We realise that our design is not pretty as such, and the finished article will be easily modifiable by changing the css. Currently this requires some more modifications, as some features are hardcoded either into XHTML or into the js, therefore they need seperating to CSS only. Nevertheless, most content is already CSS based design only. 

Width - The site makes full advantage of the width of the page. The site is easily viewable, and has been tested at widths between 640px and 1280px.

Directory - The directory has been kept for easy navigation to sections off the main page. However, assuming CSS is enabled, it will begin minimised until maximised with javascript.

Featured - This area introduces new and interesting content to the frontpage visitor, it shows the current wikipedia article of the day, alongside the BBC on this day content. It could also feature a flickr photostream, or any other content the bbc deems interesting, but not worthy of the main promotion area.

Finally, if we had more time, we would develop our ideas further, allowing full customisation for logged on users, adding additional content to the map, such as school league tables, mps and other regional data. We would expand TV functionality to link with the new services the BBC intends to provide. We will allow additional RSS feeds and notes to be added to the homepage dynamically within a users logged in area. We would also fully check accessibility, as this is very important for disabled users on the web. The site is currently mostly functional with css and js disabled, but this can be improved.

Also, we would like to engage with a wider audience, and include other ideas people might want for their homepage, including some noted in other prototypes. Personalisation is important, but the landing page for the BBC for users that have not already customised it is far more so.

Finally, we intend to further develop the prototype over the next couple of months, although this will take place on a different link, in order to provide a fair snapshot of this site at the closing date. The updated version will be held at http://backstage.min-data.co.uk/bbchome/updatedindex.php