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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

#91

Post by hokay »

mercurial wrote: post #86
meesterdude wrote: post #76

I do love when companies share this stuff. Thanks. > Rather than using PHP or Java (that was the requisite of the Forge platform), we have chosen a non-blocking framework, NodeJS with the Express framework . This allows us to serve more simultaneous requests, increasing the performance of the application. I don't doubt this is true, but its worth noting you can get good performance out of a "blocking" framework too.…

I must confess I'm quite surprised that they would get more performance out of NodeJS than with a decent Java framework. Java has its problems, but it's usually fast.

They do mention prototyping with Scala and Clojure. I also doubt NodeJS beat the JVM out and out in performance. Maybe they went with Node because it is easier to hire web developers that know javascript than it is to hire web developers with knowledge of the JVM

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#92

Post by Twirrim »

notahacker wrote: post #41
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.

The main sites from my last job load the mobile view/content first, then load in the desktop experience as appropriate (some are still in the process of transitioning to the newer design). However they were done in such a way that it shouldn't result in any jarring transitions. A couple of examples:

https://portal.ehawaii.gov/ http://energy.hawaii.gov/

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#93

Post by mercurial »

hokay wrote: post #91
mercurial wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must confess I'm quite surprised that they would get more performance out of NodeJS than with a decent Java framework. Java has its problems, but it's usually fast.

They do mention prototyping with Scala and Clojure. I also doubt NodeJS beat the JVM out and out in performance. Maybe they went with Node because it is easier to hire web developers that know javascript than it is to hire web developers with knowledge of the JVM

Java developers are not exactly a scarce commodity.

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#94

Post by lmm »

vertex-four wrote: post #88
lmm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy with that "outdated" layout yeah. It's pretty narrow on my screen - but so's the new one. The information is clear and accessible - more so than on the new one, actually. And I'd bet the filesize is smaller and the render time shorter as well.

Fine - but don't be surprised when a decade after letting their website rot, everyone's reading Murdoch's newspapers and the BBC has no reach.

The BBC was never supposed to compete in the race to the bottom. If anything I would think the opposite - a plain site becomes the voice of authority. Certainly in the print-newspaper world, the eyecatching, flashy designs are the domain of the tabloids; the more serious newspapers are more restrained, and the public trusts them more.

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#95

Post by legoisbest »

vertex-four wrote: post #88
lmm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy with that "outdated" layout yeah. It's pretty narrow on my screen - but so's the new one. The information is clear and accessible - more so than on the new one, actually. And I'd bet the filesize is smaller and the render time shorter as well.

Fine - but don't be surprised when a decade after letting their website rot, everyone's reading Murdoch's newspapers and the BBC has no reach.

Either the BBCs "content" is good enough to win out, or it's not. The way that content is presented is of little concern. The BBC website of years ago works just fine.

You've really shown your biases in that statement...

Re: How we built the new BBC Homepage

#96

Post by scaphandre »

lmm wrote: post #85
vertex-four wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd rather we kept with outdated layouts like this[0], forever? Part of rebuilding the website is updating the layout and usability of the website. In order to keep the website usable, the people administering it have to have better tools to organise content on it (as we all know, UX isn't just design, you can't just write a new template over a site with bad UX to make it perfect). Developers use whatever is most r…

I'm happy with that "outdated" layout yeah. It's pretty narrow on my screen - but so's the new one. The information is clear and accessible - more so than on the new one, actually. And I'd bet the filesize is smaller and the render time shorter as well.

You are clearly not representative of the target market. If preference were tested, I'm sure the vast majority of readers prefer more recent sites to that old style.

A dominant news site has an obligation to try to look good to it's readers.

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