Comments on the new BBC Site Design

One thing you can always count on the BBC for is stability and familiarity. That’s why it was a shock a few weeks ago to visit the BBC news frontpage on my morning link list and see that it had completely changed.

That kind of change was something that I was not prepared that early in the morning. I’ve had a few weeks to get used to it and my final verdict is that I like it.

The new design is clean and fits in with other Web 2.0 sites. The layout is a lot nicer and it’s nice to see larger pictures next to stories.

The best change of all, however, is the fact that the BBC is phasing out their god-awful pop-up video player system. Since I’m a Mac user, it never worked right and the quality was always abysmal. It was such a pain that I never bothered watching videos at all.

The BBC has seen the embedded video revolution and is now starting to embed videos into relevant news pages using what looks like flash video. The videos load quickly, the quality is good and it doesn’t look that bad on full screen.

I’ve watched more video on the BBC site recently than I ever have. Kudos to the BBC for finally changing their video strategy. Now, if only they’d realize that people outside the UK are willing to pay a premium price for high quality BBC content. I would gladly drop some coin for a constant stream of BBC News 24.

The BBC has also done some rebranding. Something that cost them a pretty penny, apparently, much to the annoyance of the Sunday Times. The BBC news Idents have changed. You can see them whenever you play a video on the site. I think they look great.

I just hope that they stay focused on their quality news while augmenting their offerings with the latest web technology and snazzy graphics. What do you guys think of the new design?