BBC News online redesign slammed
The BBC is facing a storm of online criticism over its new-look BBC News website.
Comments on several blog postings about the redesign have been heavily critical of the new look.
"Horrible, horrible, horrible new layout. Difficult to use, difficult to find things you want. Not to mention the quality of news articles here has been awful for a while, ease of use and habit is all that kept me coming back and I shall now be using an alternative. Any alternative," wrote one.
"Horrid, if you want to see your regional news it's now three or more clicks away rather than the previous one or two. I'll be choosing a different site for local news from now on as I find this new BBC look far too 'empty' (too much space) and too much hassle to use. Why break something that worked fine before?" wrote another visitor.
Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, defended the redesign in a blog posting on Thursday afternoon.
"We set out to make it easier for you to find, use and share our content wherever you are on the site. In doing this we researched carefully how people were using the site and identified quite a few things that could be improved on. We felt it was important to address these," he said.
'Mixed' reaction
But Herrmann attracted criticism with his assertion that the response to the redesign was "mixed", as the majority of the comments on his blog posts were negative.
"I quite agree with those of you who are pointing out that most of the comments at this blog are opposed to the redesign. I was not trying to suggest otherwise. As I said, there are a lot of you who clearly aren't fans of the new design," said Herrmann.
"I was also conveying that across all the feedback we've seen, including emails, social media and elsewhere on the web, the overall picture is more mixed. Given that there are several million users of the site, gauging overall response is more complicated than adding up the numbers of comments here - but it is something we will be watching closely and trying to gauge as accurately as we can in the coming days and weeks," Herrmann continued.
Web User readers have also been largely unimpressed with the redesign.
"I don't like it at all. The old page was more compact, very easy/quick to spot new items. The old left-hand vertical menu was also quicker/easier to scan and decide where to go next," wrote one visitor to Webuser.co.uk.
"Terrible. Far fewer news summaries under the headlines. That is less information. The info density is down too. Content/white space ratio seems lower. If the new design is so good why not run it in parallel with the old one and let the users of the world decide?" another wrote.
There were some positive reactions, though. "The new layout is great. Getting rid of the menu on the left for a start gives it a cleaner more open look. I love it," said one Webuser.co.uk visitor.
False positive
Meanwhile, some visitors to the BBC website using Kaspersky security software found their access denied, with the BBC News site flagged up as a phishing site. Kaspersky apologised for the mix-up.
"One of Kaspersky Lab's external providers of phishing data supplied incorrect information that was subsequently incorporated into the Company's anti-phishing databases. As a result, all Kaspersky Lab endpoint security products erroneously blocked access to the bbc.co.uk website, wrongly identifying it as a phishing site. The error was identified and corrected shortly thereafter," Kaspersky said in a statement.
"Kaspersky Lab would like to apologise for any inconvenience this problem may have caused users. The company is continually improving its procedures for testing products and releasing updates to prevent such errors from occurring in future," the statement continued.
What do you think of the BBC News website redesign? Have your say in the Comments section below.
