BBC News Online
Worthy of the awards?
— Published July 1st, 2003 | by David Moore
Some regular subscribers have suggested we can be very critical in our site audits. We'd argue that the quality of some of the sites we've looked at gave us little option.
This month we thought we'd highlight achievement rather than shortcomings, and explore why the BBC News Online site [http://news.bbc.co.uk] wins so many awards.
At the top on the news homepage we're told the site is 'Updated every minute of every day' - had to fault the content for freshness, then. The familiar BBC logo is also reassuring.
The organisation's enviable resources mean that the depth of coverage, both nationally and worldwide is also impressive, and crucially each story is surrounded by a range of metadata allowing you to explore related articles or websites.
Audio and video clips also enhance the experience, but there's a low-graphics version to make sure the more bandwidth-challenged are catered for.
Most of us would love to be able to offer this level of service, but resources don't allow it. However, the site also does the simple things well, and we can all learn from their example.
The content is well written, with short sentences, good headings and subheadings, and intelligent use of extracted quotes. They also encourage feedback, with a large Have Your Say section, and a gallery of photographs submitted by readers.
The search features and privacy policy are both comprehensive, and the clean design offers a lot of material without appearing cluttered.
There have to be some niggles, though: stories aren't given bylines, not all articles have feedback links at the bottom for you to vent instantly, and it's hard to find information about how the online news division works.
But if you're looking to deliver large amounts of news and information with clarity and elegance while encouraging feedback and exploring some of the newer technologies (such as XML syndication), the BBC News Online site shows the current best practice.
The score
| Criteria | (Full marks) | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Content | (100) | 86 |
| Functionality | (40) | 33 |
| Site Design | (30) | 25 |
| Total | (170) | 144 |
Related Links:
- BBC News Online site - [http://news.bbc.co.uk]
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