We now have a fairly good idea of how the BBC news site is going to look like after the ongoing redesign, said to be the most substantial in recent years.

Some aspects of the redesign have been revealed earlier: that the navigation moves up, for instance. But in a post on a BBC blog, eidtor Steve Hermann came up with new and interesting information: that a new edition of the site, aimed at readers in the US and Canada, is in the offing. It will be the default for the region.

The redesign looks elegant and colourful, the prosaic middle portion displaying the different news sections will feature plenty of photos in the redesigned version. That is a dramatic change on the page. The extreme right column has become very colourful - with those lists of plain headlines being replaced by pictures and links to video.

The emphais of the grid has changed somewhat - about which I had written in an earlier post.

BBC front page redesign

The changes have been summed up as follows:
-New look: More space for the main stories of the day, video and pictures.
-Clearer labelling: More prominent labelling and highlighting of different types of content.
-Story pages: On story pages, we’re placing the day’s top stories and features alongside the story so that however you arrive on the site, you can quickly see the main content of the day.
-Video: A bigger video player, streaming with better quality. We’ll place that at the top of the front page
-Latest: The most recently published stories will be flagged on the front page with a “New” badge.
-Sharing: Links that allow users more quickly and simply to share stories with friends on social networks including Facebook and Twitter.

The changes are dramatic but pretty short of revolutionary; perhaps due to concerns that disruptive changes may alientate readers.

If there is one huge challenge in a site redesign, it is to draw readers to the rich and varied repository of hidden content that any large news site has. That is a challenge that has not been addressed head on in this redesign, I felt.

Resource: BBC Slideshow link

Previous posts:
On the changes in the grid
On the earlier home page redesign