BBC Sport: Live Beyond Live

If you spent so long researching your audience, concept, navigation and everything else, why is the resulting site such a mess? As I'm sure you've gathered from posts on other blogs, the audience response is overwhelming negative. I, along with many others it would appear, preferred the old site. It was easier to read, easier to navigate and just, well, better. I'm certainly using the new site a lot less than the previous version.

in terms of user experience did you look at how easy it was to read the horribly cramped headlines?
Please make the middle column wider so they are readable.

Well at last we seem to be going up the management scale. Perhaps even more senior management and the Director General will now blog and let us the licence fee payers know the cost of the time and effort spent on producing a sports website that is no longer fit for purpose. As you mention Ben & Cait please ensure that either you or they actually respond on the other blogs to all the comments and suggestions made about the ill designed revamp. Having to use the old cricket format during matches and manually refresh sportsday just indicates the abject failure of the whole project and the inadequate research and testing carried out before this mistake was made.

A very interesting read, thank you for sharing - shock horror, I actually like the new Sport site very much. All I hear on these blogs is b*tching about everything the BBC does online, so I thought I'd just interject and bring some positivity to the party.

"We used it as a starting point but expanded on it to add more emotion, passion and dynamism needed to reflect what sport offers"

Perhaps this is where you are going wrong. It is the sport itself which provides these things, not the design of a website.. If the subject was paint drying all the garish, cluttered and irritating design in the world (which, sadly is what you have come up with) wouldn't make it interesting. As a now ex-user of this website it is the content I am interested in, not the design. At the moment the design is getting in the way of what I want to read about. Basic error.

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A lot of the ideas look good, making the final execution all the more disappointing.

The BBC web pages were some of the best designed and easy to use pages on the internet in my opinion. Now they are some of the worst, have you read the feedback on some of the blogs Ben Gallops for instance? Nearly 2000 people who use the website regularly hate it. The pages look like they have been designed for two year-old's each item trying to be more garish than the next. Have you never heard of subtlety– the overall effect is just so overpowering? On top of this things are hard to navigate and do not work. You and your team should be ashamed.

Now we have Scott telling us how thorough and responsible was the process of change on the website. Lots of words like "design language" and "concepts" but all that has resulted is a dog's breakfast of clutter. As an example, which bright spark thought up the "gossip" logo? Not only is it bigger than any headline, it's even in a bigger font than the main website banner. Furthermore it doesn't even inform the reader (it's not "gossip", it's FOOTBALL gossip).
It was good to hear about the pallet that was used but there was no explanation of why yellow dominates so completely. It even spoils the "energy and emotion" of your wonderful Alex Truchot because very few people have spotted his work yet through all the yellow. Just how much did you pay him for something that can hardly be seen?
You say that "the use of background imagery and the overlaying of text on images breaks away from the stiffness of the rigid grid, adding energy and drama to the page": a very big assumption there. I agree with a previous poster: sport itself provides the drama. I'm just glad that the main BBC News site has not yet tried to sex up the news in this way. Do you really think that users of this sport website need this sort of visual boost to their sporting IQs?
The only thing you have really achieved is a dumbing down of the appearance of the site, making it more a akin to Playschool or the CBBC channel.

6.
At 17:34 14th Feb 2012, Think Tank wrote:

'So, these 2000 people were spread across 4 locations. Presumably you selected London and Manchester because of the fixation the BBC has with football? Was Edinburgh included to keep one A Salmon quiet? What about the rest of the country? And for international feedback you go to New York - in a country that thinks the rest of the world doesn't exist for any other reason than weapons testing (The "World Series" being one example) - oh and one where they can't even spell "colour" (does your whizzy technology support multiple version of text localised to the spelling variations around the world?)'

I'm assuming that London & Manchester were used as this is where the big BBC offices are. The entirely positive feedback maybe from staff who didn't want to upset bosses with negative feedback .......

All that feedback.

It's well known that you can ask questions that will provide you with the answers that you want to hear.

The Sports, (and previous BBC re-designs) are clear examples of that.

Would we be "treated" to this lavish explanation if there hadn't have been such a furore? Doubt it.

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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

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"Consumption of "liveness" around sporting events consists of a patchwork of practices. Different types of media support different sides of the live sport experience.
Sports events are deeply social affairs. Social atmospheres are now playing out online as well as offline.
Sport events have many different rhythms. Use of media content and platforms adjust to this."


Sorry.... But can someone please translate this into English for me?

I'm not sure we even inhabit the same universe as the Beeb designers..... And I'm not sure that I want to be where they are either....

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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

You need at the very least a compass, pack of sight-hounds and bundles of lucky white heather to find your way around the "new improved BBC Sports website", it's a mess. Your eyes dart hither and thither looking for what used to be so easy to locate. Removing the links down the left hand side is nonsensical and don't start me on the "live updates"!

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Thanks; I can now better appreciate why the new design is a theoretical triumph. If you could now set about making the practical implementation even a fraction as good that would be great.

Could we have some index to the various blogs on which this subject has been / is being addressed? There are at least 5 of them, some of which I can only find via links from links. Perhaps they need to have their own Blog Home Page. I'd be happy to volunteer to sit on the user panel.

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I can't believe there is yet another blog on this.The views of the Great British public on each blog so far are so overwhelmingly against this change that you have to try harder and harder to convince us it was money and time well spent. Is there any chance of a proper and full reposnse to the major issues brought up over tha past few days?

"The use of background imagery and the overlaying of text on images breaks away from the stiffness of the rigid grid, adding energy and drama to the page."

Really? To me it just looks messy.

As I've commented on another post, I think you've lost sight of the wood by focusing too closely on all the trees. However many specific, individual issues you think you've "solved", the overall design is now pretty hideous.

Scott, are seriously saying that the amount of content on the Homepage has been reduced and simplified? It's so cluttered now I can't for one moment believe your testers liked it with even more!

How much time did the participants get to browse the site? Were they exposed for a few days, a few hours or (heaven forbid) a few minutes? Your research results could differ wildly depending on this. (See the Coke Classic re-introduction in the US in the 80s for what I mean)

Will you be publishing the results of the feedback you are collecting? Any interim feedback you can share?

From what I have seen on the blogs it is not evolution that is needed, rather revolution.

well you have a lot of feedback here. Its from committed users, who are using the site daily (although much less in my case). I'm a professional market researcher who happens to run a digital agency as well. If I'd put this pile of doggy doo out for a commercial client I'd be looking at a law suit for misrepresentation of my professional abilities. there is no better ethnography than user experience, you are reading their responses on all the varied blogs on this topic (why so many??). get somebody too act on it

This still doesn't stop it being rubbish! What a waste of mine and all the other licence fee and tax payers money.

Am I the only one who thinks that most of this blog might as well have been written in Chinese? Here in Holland we used to have 'Van Kooten en De Bie', who would have made short work of this kind of language. The most funny aspect of this blog is the question on Alex Trochut's work: how many sports can you spot? Well, on this page I just might spot a few but on the actual sports page his work is hardly visible.

Few things highlight how poorly planned and delivered this website is as 'Watch this Sspace' written above by Mr Byrne-Fraser. No spellcheck at the BBC? Or would having some correct spelling be just too conservative and acceptable to the license payer? Mike Smartt, the man who founded the BBC news website, deservedly received an OBE for his efforts. I wonder what awards the current developers and project managers would get for this disaster?

..and I thought I was the only one who found the new site cluttered, complicated and unclear! Why change something that was great..this is just confusing and exasperating to use.

Great job! The site redesign is awesome! Some people just hate change.

Thorough research but it reads as justification without inspiration. Great digital delivery design requires more than customer research. Think Apple. Successful planners look at the future. What will users want that they don't know they want today?

This post (which you explain as “the design process”) mentions none of the words “device”, “smart” or “phone”. Planning needs to consider all three.

Sadly, the recent revamp is poor for smartphone users.

There are world-leading digital content delivery planners here in London. Go use them.

My comments are relevant to all BBC online content delivery. I am aware of budget constraints especially following the licence fee review that savaged BBC online. Changing use of devices is moving fast. Strong, brave leadership is needed.

Amazing, all this effort and research and yet you still get it badly wrong. as a longtime user of your football pages in the sports section i would say that you have got the whole results/fixtures so wrong. Overall you have replaced a site that was neat, tiday and easy to use with one that is generally considered cluttered and does not easily give the general user what he wants. I find the arrogant tone of these blogs very annoying now, it would be nice for someone just to come on here and admit that hey have got things wrong rather than keep telling us that we are behind the times for not liking their new site. I work in IT and if i had delivered something that was getting the general response that the new sports website is getting then i'd probably be looking for a new job and guess who one of our customers is....it's the BBC!

Terrible job! the site redesign is dreadful! Most people just think the changes are awful.

Just wanted to provide the opposite and more prevalent counter-view to #32

I have just seen #20: "I'm closing the blog to new comments overnight.". The first comment was posted here just 24 hours ago. The Head of Digital Engagement at the BBC first tweeted a link to this blog around lunchtime today. I suggest and request that you leave this blog open for at least one week. Otherwise people are likely to draw negative inferences. Thank you.

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When considering the user feedback here, I suggest you look at the device source devices (computer or tablet or smartphone). It will be helpful if you consider the feedback by device source. I am making what may be a rash assumption that your dashboard analytics can detect device source.

Pity it wasn't designed so the live feeds work - both old and new now down, and the blog on live feeds dosen't let you post at the moment as it's "unavailable" at the moment.

When I log in (to post a comment) using my phone, the "Sign in with your BBCiD" page has a tick box next to "Remember me on this computer". Is your system device aware?

I worked in User Testing for fifteen years which also included Usability Testing for Government IT systems.

Seems like you have decided to go whole heartedly for the 'all singing and dancing' nuclear option.

'Let's include as much functionality as we can possibly squeeze into system'

The colour scheme wouldn't have been allowed on a Government website.
It really does hurt your eyes - especially for people who who are light sensitive or suffer from migraines.

The drop down menus don't appear to follow any set pattern and you can navigate all over the place trying to find info.

This now smacks of so many projects I have been involved in with the user being blamed for not 'understanding' rather than the being the most important person.
You are now caught between a rock and a hard place and you won't back down will you?

KISS

Keep it simple stupid!

It's fascinating to see this kind of detail on a project, and interesting to see that it stirs up so much interest. Seriously though, "For each of these user types full user persona's where created"?

Scott, I know someone else's comment has already mentioned the BBC's spellchecking, but that sentence is just rubbish! I'm all for language evolving but some of the rules are there for a reason, and no amount of spellcheck will fix dodgy apostrophes and using the wrong word (even if you manage to spell it correctly!).

How about "It also allowed us to share the designs with stakeholders for feedback before further and iterating on the design" - this is also just incorrect, and it's not the only example... Am I the only person who finds it quite hard to take all the complex analysis seriously when the explanation is so badly written?

Scott - thanks for the in-depth blog. I am a regular visitor to the BBC football website and can understand that you felt the need to improve things in order to move with the times. The vast majority of the feedback that I have read has been overwhelmingly negative and, whilst this is to be expected to a certain extent given the scale of the change, I do wonder about your statement:

'we enlisted the help of usability and accessibility specialists to conduct in-depth qualitative user testing'.

It is clear from my own experiences and those of many others, that usability is a big problem. I treat the BBC Football website as a homepage, reading stories that interest me and looking at results. The usability in the 'Results' section has gone from simple to extremely difficult as where I could previously scroll down through the results/scorers/cards for a particular division in one fell swoop, I must now click on each individual game to see this information. Users know how to read the football results, but I feel that we are being treated like idiots with unnecessary symbols and tabs used to separate events for the two teams. This section should be simple (i.e. like the red-button ceefax-style service that you offer on a television). Finding results from European leagues has also proven difficult (search engine required).

I have no problem with change and I like the new colour scheme and the use of audio/video material, but please don't alienate your core users by complicating something that should be simple.

Well now one hell of a read and lots of totally incomprehensible jargon which has led sadly to an equally incomprehensible site that looks like it was designed by a 10 year old on speed.A total waste of licence payers money but no doubt luuuurved by all who designed it.
As usual the BBC forgets the customer or should that be the social user having a live beyond live experience!

The new version is just far too busy.
Why try and fix something that wasn't broken?

I'll have another go:

Apparently the Blog Police could find something - but won't tell me what so I'll post this in small parts to try and appease them, identify what they're upset about and correct it. Note to Mods: I am not simply reposting the entire post you found objectionable - I'm trying to sanitise it so you'll permit it.

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Let's see if the Mods can find anything in this version to object to .....



Scott,

Well - yet another blog!

If I were you, I'd start running for the hills now - so you're the person responsible for then "the user experience"!

I have glanced through your post and (I'm sure) it's mightily interesting - from the point of answering the questions:

* What's the easiest way to upset a lot of sports fans?
* What's the easiest way to upset a lot of fee-payers?
* Whilst (no doubt) it's technically BRILLIANT and FLEXIBLE and DYNAMIC and ... does the almost universal panning you baby is getting in the multitude of blogs the BBC keep opening up not say something?
* Why do you think the end-user is bothered what technology you used?
* and LOTS of other questions that neither Ben or Cait has taken the time to respond to....

You say "Testing the new designs with real people is the only true way to know if the design is working."

Then it transpires that these "real people" were first substituted by "usability and accessibility specialists". I presume these are the people who used the infamous 2000 people for user testing - although Ben & Cait have already told us it was not possible to test the new site before release .... er ....

So, these 2000 people were spread across 4 locations. Presumably you selected London and Manchester because of the fixation the BBC has with football? Was Edinburgh included to keep one A Salmon quiet? What about the rest of the country? And for international feedback you go to New York - in a country that thinks the rest of the world doesn't exist unless their troops are overseas and that they are in that part of the world; also that for any sport they play they must have the world championship (The "World Series" being one example); don’t understand Cricket, don’t understand the difference between the 2 codes of Rugby (and understand neither) and has so little interest in F1 that they frequently have no races (although they might have one this year) - oh and one where they can't even spell the English word "colour". Does your whizzy technology support multiple version of text localised to the spelling variations around the world? How about “he walked down the pavement” (sidewalk / road)?

Then you chose to not get feedback from the 1bn+ Chinese audience or the 1bn+ Indian audience (who also speak "English") - why? No-one from the Southern Hemisphere; No-one from France east to Chicago (and that's an awful long way).

You say, "Each set of testing involved closely watching how successful users were in completing tasks, based on the initial user journeys." - maybe you should have concentrated more on the UNSUCCESSFUL users who had problems using the site (e.g. those colour-blind; or incapable of following a HEADline not at the HEAD of the page; or someone without the bandwidth to auto-play all videos; or someone who can't see the image for the caption etc etc) then you might have addresses the many issues the bloggers are reporting.

You say, "Results from each round of testing were analysed and recommendations on design updates were actioned and retested, as Neil describes." - does the more extensive testing that the public has done and reported on mean that you will now analyse these as well and come up with some more design updates blah blah blah. You have a very clear message already from the bloggers: Don't like it, can't use, found better versions elsewhere, don't like being ignored, won't stand for being treated as a child (either by way of a CBBC web-site or being fed platitudes) and, interestingly, view the whole thing as a huge waste of money in times of thrift from a public corporation that was loudly complaining (for example re F1) how it had no money.

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....all very well and worthy discussion but

I cannot face using the site, and now go elsewhere. It was my favourite, and I accessed it many many times a day for many sports. I now do not, except to see if you've changed back.

I will try and read through your design speak and make comments but that will take much time; the bottom line is you've lost me from the site, a previously complete and utter supporter.

Unfortunately I am left with the impression that there are too many vested interests and reputations at risk for there to be a proper listening to users, followed by humble and contrite change. The deafening silence emphasises this impression.

Thanks for that explanation Scott, but I can’t remember reading so much ‘management speak’ in one article for quite a while. I work for a large multi national and have witnessed the progress of many IT projects over the years. After a while the customer’s needs nearly always get forgotten, whilst the IT gurus deliver whatever watered down promises that their abilities (and egos) will allow.

After posting on the first blog and completing the customer opinion survey, I submitted a complaint (below) to the BBC’s Complaints Website (Mon 13th Feb 2012). I share most people’s frustrations with the revamped Sports site, but you’ll see I’ve made my complaint quite specific about one particular issue I have with it:
YOUR COMPLAINT:
Complaint Summary: Relaunched BBC Sport website is terrible
Full Complaint: I use the BBC Sport website to gather football statistical information for the top 5 English and top 4 Scottish Leagues (79 matches in a full programme). Previously to gather match result data for these 9 Leagues, I accessed 9 'Results' pages, where the result data (full-time scores, half-time scores, scorers, time of goals) was clearly presented on one page League by League, and easy to extract. Since the revamp of the Sport website, I now have to drill into and access the match report of every match played (79) to discover the half-time score etc. And for lower League games where there is no match report, I actually have to calculate the half-time score myself from the times given against each goal scored. So a task that occupied me for half an hour is now taking the best part of two hours to complete. I am absolutely spitting feathers about this. The matches listed in the results section aren't even listed in alphabetical order by date, meaning you can't even scroll logically down them but have to keep jumping around to find the correct (alphabetical) next match. This is an utterly unacceptable dip in the service provided. My complaint here is quite specific, as this retrograde change is costing me hours of my time now, but I would add that I think the newly launched website format is generally terrible. What was an excellent and unique data resource is now just trying to ape every other Sports website available. The previous BBC site was far better which is why I used it.
______________________________________________________________

I received this response on Wed 15th Feb 2012:

Dear Mr XXXX
Reference CAS-XXXX
Thank you for contacting us about the BBC Sport website.
We’re sorry if you’re unhappy

The high level findings were:

•Consumption of "liveness" around sporting events consists of a patchwork of practices. Different types of media support different sides of the live sport experience.


I assume your attempting to get this published in Private Eyes' Pseuds Corner! What on earth does your announcement mean in plain English?

You can spout all this 'media technobabble speak' all you like, but your can't polish a t**d.

The new website is simply rubbish compared to the old sport wesite. You can all sit around a table with your latte's and Danish pastries trying to clutch to the straws of 'other feedback' which we cannot see but face it, the old website did exactly what is said on the tin, but you can't bear to accept you've misjudged so badly with your sop to the McDonald's 2012 Olympics.

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Thanks for the response. I think you are kind of missing the point here. Shortening the page may be a good idea (personally I didn't have a problem with it) but what has resulted is really a crowded mess. It appears to result in it being much harder to find information as the headlines are too small to read. The headlines are the reason I use the site. I don't want to watch the videos, I want to read the news, why not make the headlines bigger and relegate the videos somewhere else.
I think that ThinkTanks post on an earlier blog sums it up perfectly: https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2012/02/more_on_our_new_website.html?postId=111676007
The mobile site is much easier to read and I actually find myself using the mobile site on my laptop (or the guardian site)

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Follow on from post # 50 (cut off at the feet)

I received this response on Wed 15th Feb 2012:

Dear Mr XXXX
Reference CAS-XXXX
Thank you for contacting us about the BBC Sport website.
We’re sorry if you’re unhappy with the changes that have been made to the website.
The BBC Sport’s Head of Interactive Ben Gallop, has explained the changes made in his blog:
https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2012/02/changes_to_the_bbc_sport_websi.html
The BBC Sport’s Head of Product Cait O’Riordan, has also written a blog on launching the new BBC Sport website:
https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/02/launching_bbc_sport_new.html
Frequently asked questions about the re-design and navigation of the site can be found here:
https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/16788740
If you haven’t already done so, you can register your views and feedback about the re-launch by completing the following online survey:
https://ecustomeropinions.com/survey/survey.php?sid=878133413
Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your comments. The website team will be reading and collating all feedback in order to help inform how to proceed.
Kind Regards
XXXX
BBC Complaints
bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

So even when you take the time to explain a real and specific issue with the new site, they just fob you off and send you a bog standard generic response. I perceive Ben, Cait et al are in the bunker now and prepared for the long haul, until (hopefully) people have run out of steam and stop posting on the many blogs about the changes (Armageddon) to what was previously a really good well laid out (if older) site.

This is simply unacceptable BBC. I would withdraw my subscription, but can’t because you’d put me in prison, so you leave me no alternative other than to fight fight fight.

I’ll be back.

Sheffield Steve,

From you response I guess you complained about (one of) Ben's Blog(s)?

As Scott says: "The BBC Sport desktop redesign was a big team effort, and I'd like to offer a big thank you to the design team who were involved over the course of this project and all those who gave feedback and insight throughout the project."

You'd think they actually want feedback?

You'll never guess what happened to me when I complained?

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Complaint Summary: New sport website, blogs, complaints & response

Full Complaint:

The sport Website has been completely redesigned.

According to the blogs, this was not tested beforehand. Now it's live it's plagued by problems - technical, style, usablility, functionality, responsiveness and the decrease in usability by those with sight difficulties (incl colour-blindness).

There have been numerous blogs run by the BBC (the URL is but one). These have received almost universally negative responses and requests for information. This has included: why has it changed - it's worse; can we have the old one back; why doesn't it work; why are the regions ignored; how much did it cost; why can it not be corrected quickly; how will it cope with the olympics etc.

The blog trumpets that 80% of 2,000 who were shown the new site were favourable. The 20% who weren't, together with the huge numbers blogging shown that it is a failure.

As the blogs fill with negative feedback the perception at least is that the blog is closed and a new one opened to disguise the scale of the issue.

The blogs continually prattle on about valuing feedback and yet the major issues raised are never addressed - only the minor issues.

The general perception is that the "team" hope we'll all just go away, they're incompetent, uncaring and uncommunicative. The BCC, the sports dept and it's website only exist for the benefit of the users (who, as is frequently mentioned, pay the bills).

The distain and arrogance shown by Ben Gallop and others does not become the BBC or reinforce its reputation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr XXXX

Reference CAS-XXXXXX-XXXXXXX

Thank you for contacting us about the BBC Sport website.

We’re sorry if you’re unhappy with the changes that have been made to the website.

The BBC Sport’s Head of Product Cait O’Riordan, has also written a blog on launching the new BBC Sport website:

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/02/launching_bbc_sport_new.html

Frequently asked questions about the re-design and navigation of the site can be found here:

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/16788740

If you haven’t already done so, you can register your views and feedback about the re-launch by completing the following online survey:

https://ecustomeropinions.com/survey/survey.php?sid=878133413

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your comments. The website team will be reading and collating all feedback in order to help inform how to proceed.

Kind Regards Rxxxxxd Cxxxy
BBC Complaints bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

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I get a reference to the very blogs I'm complaining about.

I'll let you know when I get a response to my complaint that my complaint was not addressed ... in the meantime follow me: breathe in .... breathe out ... keep going ... don't wait!

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Scott, I am colour blind (the common red/green type) but even I was startled by your amazing colour "palette" (it's usually spelled that way, by the way). Not exactly a broad spectrum is it? As far as I can see you only use three main colours: eye-aching yellow, hyperactive blue and black. You rightly state the fairly obvious point of the yellow and blue that "each is easily distinguished when side by side". This has been said before on one of the many other blogs but it's a pity that your designers didn't obey this principle when working out the colour scheme for the Win/Draw/Loss indicators on the football league tables. They tend to meld into one for me. I thought that one of your principles of redesign was to aid the visually-impaired?

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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Dear BBC Sport website, I have loved you for many years.. spent many hours in your company, living and breathing every moment of live sport possible, in fact there have been many unforgettable moments.. but you've changed recently, I would like to say "it's not you, it's me.." but I can't because it really is all about you... I feel I just don't understand you now, we used to be so in tune but I now can't find anything I like about you (in fact, I can't find anything I'm looking for on the site)!

So farewell, I'm off to date your sister.. we all know who I'm talking about.. she's younger, fitter and understands what I want and delivers accordingly..

On a serious note, I used to spend at least an hour every day on the BBC sports website, I will not be going anywhere near it until the people responsible for this mess put it right. I'm sure you were acting with the best intentions, but you really have ruined it.. So stop defending it, man up and sort it out..

Please please please take notice of 90% of the posters and bring back the perfectly good old site and put the new one in the bin

Six main comments:

1) Live beyond Live - Is this a joke? Since the new site has been launched you have barely been managing live feeds (at the moment all live feeds need to be manually refreshed). Why have you messed with something which worked perfectly well?

2) User Journey One (Catch-Up and Comment) - I think you have actually managed to simplify the customer journey now with the new site, as people will now just go straight to The Guardian website without trying to navigate through this mess.

3) Concept Exploration - Is it just my eyes or are all of the print outs in black and white? Maybe if you had actually explored the concept correctly, by looking at it as it would look on a screen, in colour and at the correct size you could have seen how bad it actually looks.

4) Banner Illustration - Here's an idea, give us a site that works before you start messing around with this sort of rubbish, think of the extra testing that could have been paid for (you may have even been able to afford to print concepts out in colour - it would require a lot of yellow ink!).

5) Colour Usage - I am colourblind and have to agree you picked the wrong choices in colours. The football league tables are pretty much unusable for me.

6) Watch This Sspace - Firstly, no I won't. Secondly 'space' only has one 's', if you can't be bothered to proof read your own blog how are you competent to write text for a website?

@62 "bring back the perfectly good old site and put the new one in the bin"

Sorry, not going to happen. There are too many egos involved, and going back to the old site would be an admission that they've spend years of work delivering a huge mistake. Try putting that on your C.V. for your next job interview.

It is interesting to note that the chief culprit got out of the firing line well in advance ... "then Creative Director, and now Head of UX&D for Sport & London 2012". Unfortunately, I think we may still be paying his salary from out taxes.

Scott,
Thanks for your previous response. Please can you clarify why you felt the need to colour code the last 10 results? W/D/L has worked perfectly well for many years & doesn't exclude your colour blind viewere.

1. Thanks for the comments from both you & your colleagues on their varied 'blogs'.
2. Please, please, please can we just have ONE 'blog' that is continuously available for all to contribute ANY comments about the new site via a prominent link on the BBC Sport homepage??
Until this issue is totally closed to discussion surely only one 'blog' should be necessary.
This ideally should contain or draw together all the postings on the numerous ones presently 'live' or 'closed' to date so that everyone (user or BBC response with a simple link to any page information) wishing to contribute or assess overall feedback only has to visit one place?
Presently it would seem that more time seems to be spent in attempts to dilute the negative feedback by creating new 'blogs' than addressing issues raised?

Just wanted to add my voice to those other malcontents.

The yellow is far, far too garish and there's too much of it.

The green of the 'headlines' is far too pale - which colour palette did that come from? Then the lead-in sentence in blue - what's wrong with using black? It shows up extremely well on a white background.

Overall, it looks way too busy.

If you want to see a nicely laid-out page, easy on the eye, can I suggest you select 'More Sports' from the Sport home page, and click on any of those links?

I've tried to like this site, I've bowed down to your phenomenal resources/reputation and accepted that perhaps you KNOW. However it's really basic stuff that's not working for me. Surely as graphic designers (supposedly as good as they get) you can see that it's FAR TOO BUSY! - 5 columns is an absolute bombardment on the senses, the old site was so much easier on the eye - that is why I preferred you over Skysports' - shame that I feel inclined towards them now. Really disappointing (but at the same time inspirational, that even the 'Big Boys' can be way off the mark from time to time)

I was a Senior System Test Engineer (Nice name for a Software Tester) working on Military/Banking Systems.
So my question on the testing are, What Test strategy was used? was testing conducted against a Requirement doc. Was functionality tested against a Functional Spec? and did the testing match the documentation? or were the testers just doing ad-hoc testing?
Did anyone do any comparative testing?
Why wasn't the community used in the User Acceptance Test stage, not difficult to run both systems side by side, and you would have got a lot of FREE help.

Considering the number of faults found, that really should have been picked up by any reasonable testing I vote for ad-hoc though I believe some errors were so fundamental that even ad-hoc testing should have found them. (Auto starting videos, links to nothing etc)
Was it tested against different OS's, web browsers, mobiles, tablets, using all the standard screen resolutions? - Doesn't sound like it was or the scope set was too narrow.

For me the obvious problems would be that the navigation is far from intuitive and requires far too much user input, i.e select from drop down and then confirm selection.
Web pages are far too busy and data is not displayed in a manner that most people would consider sensible. Surely collated results/fixtures should be done by date not league.

Was consideration given to the colour schemes the brashness of the Yellow, and the problem of using a red/green system with it's obvious problems?

And as a final thought why the continual start of new blogs? this only gives the impression that the BBC doesn't like what it's reading and just hopes that people will eventually just give up.

result 4/10 See Me

After all your work on the redesign and the numerous comments and complaints that you have aboot the new site please can you show some contrition and apologise for getting this so wrong. You must feel so badly after the total majority of comments are so negative, can you recognise that something has gone very wrong. Wether this is the market research or the process you are left with an abominable effort. It is also worth noting that your acceptance of derision is mind blowingly silent in it's non comment. On a personal level I am so disappointed in the BBC's willingness to let this by. I used to enjoy so much the old style site revelling in it's useability, interest and outlay, you have deprived me of this as you have done with so many other folks. I have tried to use the new format but I keep getting bogged down with cluttered presentation, non dynamic outlook and the immediate sight of a YELLOW, YELLOW, YELLOW eyesore that it wakes me up too much to carry on. I asked my wife to view the site and to give me her initial feeling on it, I was greeted with "Oh my god, it's sooooo YELLOW!" and "what a mess it looks, why is it sooo cluttered". To me that is all the market research I would need if a non sports fan like her can make such comments how the hell are you going to attract a new audience. I am so very angry that you have mucked up such a good freind that the old style site was that I do not think you will even hold on to your present audience. You are supposed to be producing work of a standard for all licence fee payers to be proud of and able to use. What does this say aboot your future employment prospects when you will look back on the associaton tha tyou have with this debacle. Get it right and destroy this utter garbage and let peace and sensibility reign supreme and do the most simplest of kind things and let us sports fans have back our proper site of elysian fields.

Sorry, simply loath the new design. It looks like someone wanted to out-redtop a tabloid newspaper.

hi i would like to say your website is very good, much better than sky. But it would be nice to see the fa youth cup and fa trophy covered, hope you can ammend this fred.

I'd be very interested to find out if you are still able to boast 11.5 million website browsers a week. Even my employee mentioned that her grandfather remarked that he didn't use the site any more to her. This really is a total failure on your behalf BBC.

@64 Well said.

Having been told off by Ian for posting a little joke about the amount of blogs the BBC is posting on this subject I will just stick the the facts.

Was this site tested with people who suffer from colour blindness? (I doubt it was)

Was this site tested by any blind or partially sighted people who need to use a screen reader? (again I doubt it was)

Why so much YELLOW, when this page, https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/motorbikes/default.stm , has the BBC Sport branding but then has a nice soft banner for the rest of the page and it looks great.

The huge pictures with big blocks of text slapped on them look hideous and why so big as it is all you can see on some smaller devices.

Put the top menu bar in the header bar as per the BBC News site and adopt the same page structure as the News site

The new site is so in your face, it is as if someone is standing nose to nose with you shouting and cursing at you. Would you like that, no you wouldn't and neither do the public.

I agree you need to add new content and features but we all know this can be done without a major face lift. This face lift has gone badly wrong and the surgeon needs to be struck off before anymore damage to the reputation of the BBC is done.

You are probably the best public service broadcaster in the world and 99% of your products are top quality be it TV, Radio or Internet, this site however falls into the 1% of utter rubbish, the El Dorado of webites.

Rant over...Off to read the Guardian site now...

Is this now the only blog left open for any comments?

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I dislike the new site very very much, difficult to navigate way too much info to take it at 1 time, did i say it is difficult to navigate but I did like it when I saw the update button BUT guess what it doesn't DOH !!! the is a step backwards seriously SHOCKING !!!!!! you should make things work before implimenting them nit just put it together & fix the bugs as they apppears seriously bad approach please can we have the old one back

I actually think the second of the 'early visual concept designs for the sport homepage' in the above post is much, much better than what was actually released. It looks a lot cleaner, with more emphasis on fewer top stories as opposed to the information overload we have right now.

I was always taught that the homepage should give a brief overview of the main site as a whole and more in-depth information is confined to the specific areas of the site. I think that’s the main problem with your re-designed homepage – it’s trying to display too much information at first glance making it difficult, as a visitor, to find what it is you’re looking for.

That said, I’m personally a fan of the new look and feel of the site and you’re doing a good job in that respect (apart from the awful new masthead, which I won’t go into). It’s just the content and layout that needs some refining.

Where did it all go wrong after the concepts?

Actually, thinkg about it, it's obviously a way of reducing the number of negative posts. Increase the time between posts and bloggers will go away. It surely can't be a coincidence this change has happned now.

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As a UX designer this makes quite upsetting reading.

I applaud Scott's intentions of openness and I assume pride in his work. Let's remember no one was trying to make something terrible here. Design is hard and in an organisation as large as the BBC it takes a great deal of energy to fight your creative corner.

However I sadly agree with most of the criticism written here. I'm concerned at the heavy reliance on feedback to cover the decision making. Yes - as UX we are informed by research, but this never makes the design process automatic. There is skill and judgement in there. This seems in question.

I think with recent changes the BBC has missed an important point.
They have a LOT of content. The design challenge they face in my opinion to present this in a simple way. Recent changes seem to just place more content on the screen. It's chaotic, noisy, and feels disorganised.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Please turn down the volume (and yes that does include the amount of YELLOW).

I hope we are just mid step in a longer process.
Good luck Scott.

Sorry, I don't care how much research and effort has gone into the new website it is awful!! What a waste of money. The old site was simple and clear. This new site just looks a mess.

Well done me - I found this new Blog and have added it to my growing collection.

It is easy to get carried away on a tide of revulsion, so I thought I'd do the decent thing and have a good re-read of the long "editorial comment" which opens this page.

It is the longest description of how a team ended up in the wrong place that I have ever read.

Why I am still writing this when it seems that no-one is going to respond ? It is because I remain just as angry as when I first tried out the Olympic Downgrade of the BBC Sport Website.

You can change Blogs as often as you like but you cannot manipulate me into liking what you have done. Fixing the website properly is the only way to do that and in the meantime it would be courteous to let me have the old one back - it worked.

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I can't see this blog lasting too long either.....

Better get writing another 'On message introduction that mentions 'Dynamic' as often as possible for the next blog...

76.At 10:36 16th Feb 2012, Give Me A Break! wrote:
Is this now the only blog left open for any comments?

This one is at the moment I write.


https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2012/02/more_on_our_new_website.html

It is indeed a truism that respondents to a blog asking for comments on any kind of change are most likely to be the complainers, as those who like the changes are hardly likely to bother reading about how they were conceived, are they?
So, with that in mind let me add my name to the long list of moaners. I used to visit BBC Sport website a few times a week and the Football site at least once a day. It was very simple to use, everything was laid out in a logical fashion, and basically it was a joy to use. Not any more. It looks like a bright yellow dog's dinner, and the info is no longer logically filed, making it hard to find what you want. Surely in your research you would have found out that the best way to view information is in a logical linear fashion, not chucked up in the air and reassembled in what looks like a Warholian cut'n'paste nightmare.
I still need my daily fix of footie news and the Beeb is still the best place to get it, even after the humour was removed by the sacking of Robbo, but I no longer look forward to the daily visit, which is a great shame. Judging by the other comments, I am not alone. Sort it out!

"the use of background imagery and the overlaying of text on images breaks away from the stiffness of the rigid grid, adding energy and drama to the page":

NO NO NO It does not, it covers up the picture and frankly looks like someone put it in the wrong place by accident

And give me back the ability to 'open in new tab' all the pages not just the ones you want me to

This is a test as whenever I try to add my proper comments I get a timer that whirls aways for eternity! Even if I click preview I just get 'generating preview' for eternity. Arghh

I have been trying to read football & cricket articles since the new website went live, but I find the boxes which indent the text on the left-hand side make reading very difficult. Is this just me? Presumably the 2,000 testers liked this feature? I have been a passionate fan of the BBC sports website for years but I feel terribly upset at how difficult it is to use and read now, and how peoples comments appear to be being ignored. Thank goodness Ceefax seems to have avoided the makeover and has also stayed blue.

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I LIKE the blue link to live sport. Right, now I've got your attention Scott......

My main reason for disliking the new format is the over-abundance of pictures which add nothing to the content apart from wasting space. Is there any chance of being able to personalise the sports home page to exclude this wastage (and maybe any sections for sports which one would never have any interest in - for some this may even include football!)

Perhaps just use pictures for links to videos/tv programmes to enable these to stand out more; links to text surely requires nothing more than a headline in text.

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I'm so frustrated reading yet more nonsense about how you followed process X and users were involved and helped create this monstrosity, because irrespective of whether you spent 5 minutes on preparation or 10 years, and irrespective of whether you involved no users or thought you picked 2000 mass users of the old site, what you have actually produced is an inedible dogs dinner, a disaster, the worst redesign of any website in terms of the quality before to the quality now that I have ever seen since the web's inception! An utter failure of the testing process.

I aslo keep reading this drivel about live being at the centre of everything you do, which is a great slogan, but again the actual reality is that the live experience is now sooooo much worse than it was before. How can you not see that? How could any football fan for example think that your redesign offers them a better live experience on a saturday afternoon as the scores/scorers/red cards, squad announcements come in? How could anyone say it is easier to find today's football fixtures than it was before? If a single user during the research agreed that this redesign is better then they are clearly blind, or not a football fan OR perhaps more likely they saw some concepts, but NOT the final developed test site (hard to believe you even had one given the number of bugs, or maybe you did but didnt user test or functional test on it) before going live.

If live really is so important can you please explain HOW someone wanting to see the live football scores/scorers/red cards/sending offs etc happening second by second on the BBC site actually should do that and why it's better now? From my testing all I've been able to do is go to a live scores page, which starts empty, and then you need to select a division or competition (there's no option for 'all') even though many people are interested in all the football scores/scorers etc for the day not just one team or one division or one cup competition. Anyway I pick one competition and cant see the scorers so I have to click though to each match report or click to open up each fixture to see them, and after doing this 10 times, I have to select the next division from a drop down, press update (why even add in the extra click of update), and start again.

If I click through to a match report to see what players are involved and click back, all the fixtures/scores I'd just selected from the drop down have disappeared so I need to reset that division again. Then once I've gone through all the divisions/comps, I have to start the whole process again, and in some divisions there will have been several goals in that time, so I'll have to open up any matches I previously checked but have now changed, and of course no easy summarised chronological view is possible even by division. Aside from all this sometimes in the useless blue match highlight you see things like 'Tubbs goal undefined undefined Huddersfield' whatever that means, and even if it the words makes sense they disappear quickly to be replaced by something else, so blink and you miss that highlight behind one of the fixtures listed below and need to search for it.

As for fixtures, if I want to see today's fixtures I have to find them amongst a weeks worth of fixtures listed by division or competition, and the next fixtures aren't necessarily even at the top, so you scroll down through each division which may or may not have a game today trying to spot the relevant date.

When you click on results you get shown fixtures yet to be played at the top of the page rather than results!!! Why are fixtures on a results page, and why are they prioritised at the top ahead of actual results, and why dont they show things like the scorers!!!!?

A radical idea to meet your live commitment would be to have one vidiprinter in chronological order which highlights scorers, the minute the goal happened, red cards, sendings off etc etc, so you dont even have to sit and stare at it, you can look whenever you want and simply catch up without clicking but by scrolling to see whatever you missed. Oh wait you had that already but binned it

Another radical idea could be to simply have fixtures by day for the coming week, so at a glance you can see all the upcoming matches. Oh wait you had that and binned it.

Another radical idea idea could be to also have a latest scores page for certain divisions, showing all the live scorers, red cards etc for each game without any clicking. Oh wait you had that and binned it.

Another radical idea could be to list the results and scorers on one page, even if by division, without any fixtures mixed in. Oh wait you had that and binned it.

You also binned things like the club stats, well you'd say you didnt, but now you only list things like the top 3 scorers (not showing their goals by competition) instead of all the scorers for that team this season and by competition, so it's another retrograde step.

All this is just on football and I havent even mentioned live text, I could start on Cricket or F1 or almost any subject you're covering, but we'd be here all day!

In summary what you did is largely irrelevant to all of us. What we care about is what we can see now, and given it's terrible, what are you going to do about it? Noone at the BBC seems to be covering that key point.

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the old live commentary was good, no need to change. its change for change shake. you say dynamic i say a pile of rubbish. the live commentary only needed little improvement with the in game photos.

i bet we will have to refresh the page tonight to get updates. there are too mouse clicks and no way of customising the pages either the sports or the homepage. the customisation tool on the previous homepage was great which meant you can have what you are only interested in not what other people are interested in.

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'Live beyond live" unless you are an ipad user. You would think a website update would be written in HTML5 to allow ipad users to view videos on the new website since it is full of videos and ipads count for 58% of the tablet market. I thought the redesign was geared towards tablets, yet half of all tablets can't see the videos