UKH

It has been totally dumbed down. Well, the landing page definitely has. Didn't bother to look past it!

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

In what way? I think its simplified look is the result of their web design being fully www-standards-compliant regarding those with poor eyesight etc. They are probably as up to speed with these standards as anybody in the world.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


I'm guessing you are referring to WCAG compliance (more of a guideline than standard I believe). Just chucked bbc.com at a few of the online compliance checkers and it doesn't look like it's doing that great a job, with around 40% of the pages being flagged with accessibility issues - including pretty basic stuff such as images missing alt tags.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Ah well. It's not the end of the world though, is it.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

If you sign in, you can tailor it to your own liking.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I think I agree. I think they have a lot more videos these days. I can read a lot more information in the same time as it takes me to watch one of their reporters read it to me.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I agree with you.
The homepage increasingly has what would have traditionally been an 'and finally story' in a prominent lead position.

Right now the second most prominent story is about a Primark T-shirt that references a television programme.

It feels like an editorial change with more 'light' stories being given prominence.

Not welcome a change but maybe I am not the target market.

In reply to TMM:

Absolutely - it's clearly consciously 'magazine-like' in certain key respects. I think some of these are to do with their identity as a broadcaster rather than publisher etc. but it is further from being a useful 'quick go-to' news source than ever.
The Top 10 sidebar epitomises the move towards 'trending', consumer-oriented news and away from editorial direction.
I think a lot of the thinking is around 'personalising' all BBC services, including news, such that your profile can deliver content relevant to you. I don't think it's what Lord Reith would have wanted!

In reply to sg:


Why on earth does it matter what a bloke born in 1889 and who has been dead 46 years wanted?

Times change.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I worked as a web developer with the BBC last year and many years ago. They used to be really keen on accessibility/web-standards etc but now a lot parts of the BBC are not up to standard these days, though the part I worked on was fully functional without javascript etc. Web standards seems to be a dying art, though the Government websites are usually very good.

J

In reply to Oceanrower:


It was just a comment - I'm not a Reith groupie! Of course times change, hence the discussion about how the BBC has changed - I'm certainly glad the continuity announcements are no longer read by Mr Cholmondley-Warner.

Having said that, I am of the view that, in the era of post-truth journalism and fake news etc etc, it's as important as ever that a public service organisation is able to provide ad-free and reliable news content. My concern is certainly not that we need an elitist, patronising broadcaster that tells the uneducated masses what the Oxbridge patriarchy thinks they need to know. It's that the BBC's content gateways are, increasingly, a mix of news material and other types of material which, arguably, dilutes that public service function.

In the age of the internet, anyone who thinks they are able to maintain some kind of 'meta-journalistic' sense that can magically filter out / separate balanced, sound, reliable content from other stuff without routinely spending a lot of time reviewing numerous more 'in depth' sources is probably deluded, I think.