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How we built the new BBC Homepage

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#41

Post by notahacker »

Twirrim wrote: post #7

Hmm. While it's nice to push rendering out to clients for saving your server CPU, that can lead to a suboptimal mobile experience, requiring more CPU and battery power on the mobile device to work on the javascript and render the page. There are other factors, for sure, but you want to be keeping client side javascript down to a minimum. Taking a quick spin through yslow in the mobile browser suggests they've got a n…

Plus this is the only time I've ever seen "mobile first" interpreted quite so literally (i.e. on a desktop with a reasonable connection the mobile stylesheet loads before the main styles and content and is visible for just long enough for the eyes to register the layout, producing a horrible "flash of unstyled content" effect).

n.b. plenty of people looking at the BBC site are still being shown the old style.

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#42

Post by smcgivern »

mattmanser wrote: post #34
davb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using the new design on mobile for a while here and the user experience is awful compared to the old design. Although the parent comment might seem a bit patronising, I think he's right - they've focussed too much on the technology and design fads. Compared to the old site, there's a lot of "big text", too much of a focus on images (when you drill down into the site) and less on text, and low information de…

The guardian have also similarly screwed up their mobile implementation, with at one point they broke the back key because they had expandos that couldn't remember their state. But both these sites still suffer from "the flash", where it renders once, and then renders again half a second lafer with everything moving. It's disorientating and simply a bad UX. Also the BBC used yo have this terrible experience for a few…

I like the design of the new BBC and Guardian websites, but I agree that if they're aiming for mobile first, they still have a way to go.

In particular, 'the flash' you mentioned on The Guardian means that often, instead of iOS 8 Safari scrolling when I try to scroll, it activates a link - or worse, an ad! It's infuriating, and it's significantly less usable than their old site in that regard.

For a truly bad mobile site, though, try going to Cricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ Go to an article, then go back. Notice that:

1) Your horizontal scroll position in the article list is lost.

2) The page renders, then re-renders exactly the same (for me at least), with a jump to the top of the page in between.

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#44

Post by vertex-four »

legoisbest wrote: post #35
mikecmpbll wrote: post #27

Christ, so much hatred. I like the desktop site, I like the mobile site, and I like and appreciate that you're giving us an insight in to your tech stack and how content is published. Cheers beeb.

Does anyone know how much of this development is paid for by the UK tax payer vs BBC worldwide profits from DVDs etc? I'm not sure website development should be paid by UK tax payers TBH... Maybe at least some of the reason for hate. My main hate is the idiotic cookie policy which makes everything look ugly, but I guess the EU is to blame there.

> I'm not sure website development should be paid by UK tax payers TBH...

We pay for it mostly via the TV license fee. The BBC is not allowed to make money off UK citizens for any of its core services (TV, radio, news) - hence why some BBC links for the rest of the world are blocked for us, as they contain advertisements.

BBC News is primarily intended for a UK audience, so it makes sense that it's paid for by UK taxpayers. It's distribution infrastructure, just like the Freeview transmitters and the Freesat satellite - why wouldn't it be paid for by the taxpayer, who overwhelmingly demands online access to news and TV catch-up?

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#45

Post by simons »

clarkdave wrote: post #14
Domenic_S wrote: post #3

Tons of tech buzzwords, yet the blog intercepts middle-clicks. I want to open your links in a new tab so I can read them when I'm done with your blog!

It's not just the blog - news.bbc.co.uk also intercepts middle clicks to external sites. Middle clicks on links to other bbc.co.uk pages work fine though. Is it an accident or intentional? Anyone know?

I believe it's unintentional - I expect it stems from JavaScript event tracking (e.preventDefault(); logEvent(e); window.location=e.target.href; Or something to that effect).

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#47

Post by jwmoz »

ricardobeat wrote: post #24
super-serial wrote: post #5

It's like they monitored the front-page of HN everyday for a year, made a list of the top mentioned technologies and then gave that list to their management. Their manager said "Your goal is to write a blog post mentioning each one of these technologies, and add links so it appears in dark-bold-blue text. If we don't have a project using a trendy tech-stack... you bust your ass and get something up and running." The…

This is extremely offensive to the team that built this product. Why the hate?

Don't invite Ricardo to parties.

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#48

Post by kokey »

super-serial wrote: post #5

It's like they monitored the front-page of HN everyday for a year, made a list of the top mentioned technologies and then gave that list to their management. Their manager said "Your goal is to write a blog post mentioning each one of these technologies, and add links so it appears in dark-bold-blue text. If we don't have a project using a trendy tech-stack... you bust your ass and get something up and running." The…

I love your comment, but I think the reality is more that they already had all the hipsters on board, the technology choices just followed naturally from that.
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