BBC Online is overhauling its design principles and the new homepage is the first fruit of its labours. Central to the new style is the carousel, which is intended to organise content in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they're looking for and also to discover new things.
The designers have used colour coding and icons to categorise content types, and the page can be tailored to the user's interests. There are real time listings for TV and radio, and sliding "drawers" to reveal more or less detail.
The new version will replace the existing page, which attracts over nine million weekly unique users, by the end of the year. A mobile-optimised version will also appear at some point.
In a press release, Phil Fearnley, general manager of news & knowledge, BBC Future Media, said: “We’ve made improvements progressively to the BBC Homepage since it launched in 1997. The beta version launched today represents a real step change: we’ve rebuilt from first principles to deliver an intuitive experience which makes it easier for users to explore the wealth of BBC content on the web than ever before.”
