You may have noticed some very small clues that something big is happening to BBC News online. Over the weekend, one or two links changed and icons were upgraded. I noticed this with excitement as, with anticipation, I have been waiting to see the direction in which BBC News on-line goes…

This morning, the BBC News Web site launched its new look, which has been designed to fit in with the entire BBC network of Web pages and micro sites.

Immediately upon entering the site, you will be aware of the fantastic amount of space that has been lacking in previous builds. The mass increase of ‘white space’ is a welcome addition to a once cramped and chaotic Web site. With larger headlines, typefaces and images making use of the newly allocated screen real estate, the site becomes easier to read and refreshingly reminiscent of the BBC’s remit to appeal to everybody.

I can see more and more young people perhaps taking an interest in current affairs because of something as simple as a more modern-looking and, dare I say it, Web 2.0 feel to the BBC News Web site. The site does, at first appear to be as accessible as the previous builds. Once again, the ‘Accessibility help’ link at the top of the page is easily spotted. I do worry, however, that as with the new Home page, I have come across one or two links and groups of links which use colour alone to indicate that it is, in fact, a ‘clickable’ link. Did you know that almost one in three men have some sort of colour blindness? A link that only changes colour does not help those people, nor anybody else with a similar impediment.

The BBC masthead at the top of every page has undergone a change, too. Sadly, it does take up a lot of space and while this may be acceptable on other parts of BBC On-line, I don’t think people will have too much trouble realising that they are on a BBC site if the black masthead were ditched in favour of the rather nice-looking red banner. It is important to remember that using large mastheads (or in this case, using two mastheads) often pushes too much of the most important content ‘below the fold’. That is the point at which a user must scroll down the page and is often left unread. It’s also apparent that the BBC logo shows up a few times too many. We have to remember that this can be an annoyance and is one of the reasons many people switch from commercial sites and broadcasters to Public Service Broadcasters.

Another design flaw I see, and I may just be being picky and ‘Web-designery’, but the continued use of the Verdana typeface, even though the font size has increased, was a bad move. Whilst it may be clear that Verdana is an excellent type for smaller font-sizes as it is easier to read and is more ‘humanist’, it is not the most pleasant-looking of fonts when the size is increased. Arial, Trebuchet MS, or even Lucida Sans Unicode would have been a much better choice in terms of a good-looking design. Plus, Trebuchet MS has been shown to be one of the easiest typefaces for dyslexic people to read.

The articles themselves don’t look an awful lot bigger, the sidebars take up more of the available space from previous versions than the articles themselves. That in itself is a good thing, however, as studies have shown that users tend to lose track of what they are reading if they are forced to read wide bodies of copy on the screen. It is obvious that the articles have increased in width over the years; gone are the days when there was very little on the screen besides the article text and links to other news articles.

Now, however, every single part of the BBC Web site is vying for (arguably) the most precious screen real estate in the country. This gives a user more choice and allows them to stick around much longer, as well as increasing traffic across the board.

The Web site is now beginning to increase the use of embedded video players (part of the BBC’s iPlayer system) so that users won’t have to open a new window to watch news stories and clips. Images have increased in size, in a concious decision by the designers, in response to user feedback from the last build. It’s worth remembering that many browsers will automatically block any form of pop-up window, so the phasing out of this system in favour of the embedded videos is definitely a plus!

Finally, the biggest change and perhaps most important (or trendy), is the centralisation of the content. All of the page is aligned to the centre and as such is easier to read. Instead of your eyes being directed to the massive block of white space to the right of every BBC News page, the very short attention span of a Web surfer is quite appropriately burned up where it should be; on the content and images within the page itself.

Overall, I think this redesign is a step in the right direction and, as was mentioned in the BBC News editor’s blog, more changes and design tweaks are on their way over the coming days and months and even throughout the year as more and more functionality is introduced across the board on the BBC’s online network.

Not everybody is convinced, however, as some of the comments on the BBC Editors’ Web logs are evidence of:

I HATE it! Sorry. Too sparse and spread out, too big (cannot see whole front page on screen), text is too light. Yuk!

It seems some people are yet to be convinced…