BBC News website redesign goes live

Visitors to the BBC News website will see a completely different design from Wednesday.

The redesigned BBC News website, plans for which were revealed earlier this month, features integration with sites such as Facebook and Twitter, making it easier to share stories with friends.

The main menu has moved to the top of the page and there is more emphasis on the stories the BBC considers to be the most important.

There are more video stories and the new video player is bigger, with improved playback quality.

The BBC explained that it had asked for ideas from the public in order to research the redesign.

"We talked to audience groups, held one-to-one user-testing sessions, and invited several thousands of you to try out a prototype version of today's new design. With this feedback, we arrived at the design you see today," said Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website.

As well as the BBC News homepage, individual story pages have also been changed.

"Our story pages are now arranged so that those who arrive at the site directly into a story are offered a selection of top content from across the news website and content related to a given story is now in context within the story body, and at the end of the story," Hermann said.

Back in April, the BBC scrapped the low-graphics versions of the BBC News and BBC Sport websites.

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