³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

First impressions are very good, with the amount of detail available on each page a lot better now than with the previous sites. The layout too is great, the space has been used really well. Just a question though: where can you find the simulcasts of C³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and Cbeebies? I could find the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Four one just fine through its new site, but no link to the C³ÉÈËÂÛ̳/Cbeebies ones. Are links to these going to be put on each one's homepage too, or are links to be provided through the iPlayer itself?

Well done again on these new websites.

The most useful part of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳4 website has gone: it is the weekly schedule with synopses, which I print off every week, and our household find invaluable.

Please bring this back.

Truly awesome, world class work.

Well done everyone involved.

I think you mean a 'discreet' temporal metaphor! :)

Hi Dan,

Looks really good - and a brilliant visual EPG: will the What's On page use the same idea of having pictures rather than just the name?

I don't know if this is your brief, but any chance you can fix the TV schedule on the homepage so that after 10pm (or earlier) it shows later TV programmes rather than the early evening schedule. Annoys me a bit that you can't instantly see what's on at 10.30 sometimes.

Olly

Impressive work, although not something I'd ever need to use personally until the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ fixes its DRM.

I don't really have any use for increasingly cute implementations of the 'channels' metaphor.

I don't know how much of the design was the result of focus-testing. However it seems more like an elaborate attempt at trying to prove the relevance of broadcast delivery to an audience that is increasingly migrating online and has stopped watching.

On a more constructive note, the links to the channel pages are pretty deeply buried on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.co.uk front page, although I assume this will change soon. Also, having to scroll to the bottom of a channel page to get to the channels menu is fiddly and unintuitive.

Having a top-level section for channel idents is a bit frivolous. Programme trailers (for example) would be more useful.

Also! It's a bit disconcerting that there isn't a central textual thread (a 'web log' if you will) tracking pertinent updates in a manageable way.

The page looks like an Interactive TV frontend (wide, cluttered, dozens of clashing styles, nothing to guide the eye to anything), rather than a readable website.

Seriously, I use news.bbc.co.uk every day - why can't the rest of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s web presence take some cues from this instead of assaulting the visitor with a jumble of multicoloured boxes?

Wake me up when you finally decide to put up the olympic coverage that was scandelously never released on iPlaer despite only ever airing once on TV, and that on 'red button' only channels.

Until then this is all bluster and no substance.

It looks nice, but it's full of irritating flash. Clever thumbnail menus are one thing, but they usually take longer to load, although this was sharper than usual.
The previous TV guide was fine, but I just wonder why simple functionality is no longer sufficient. Digging three levels deep and wading through photos just to see what's on gets annoying. Lists are easier to navigate.

In any case, after spending money changing it, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is not likely to change anything back on the strength of a few complaints.

Intrigued by the programme "Controller not found " which appears to be showing on all of the channels on the TV homepage.

Quite like the look of "Programmes start from (none) " too.

Seriously though, I like the new style but think the content really needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.

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i just wanted to know what's on all the main channels for the day.

no easy way to do this now - or if there is, it's hidden from the likes of me . bring back the old page.

I fully agree with Bluedog 1257, and I think exactly the same.
As I live in Belgium, I can't see the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ programmes in the papers and magazines that I read. I used to print a full week's programme of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳4 to take home and serve as a guide for the week.
I was thinking to ask ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ to do the same with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳1 (a full weekly programme by one click instead of seven), but I see now that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has gone the other way round.
Please give us back the full week's print...

One small suggestion: at the bottom of the page could you please put in a "Back to the calender" link so that when surfing through, day by day, it would save scrolling back up to the where the calender is currently located.

Alternatively, how about reproducing the calender at the bottom of the page?

I like the possibility of looking further back in time than just 'yesterday' - much appreciated, thanks! :-)

Fabulous. I really like the feeling that the website is now full of video content, looks very nice too.

There are some improvements, such as a weekly schedule I suppose (this does sound useful) and moving the calendar navigation further up the page, also when I was in the /tv section on a certain page... the 'tv' logo didn't link back to the tv homepage and that doesn't feel intuitive.

Beautiful, clean and what a fabulous foundation for even further good work!

Well done!

I don't like the new layout on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳4 schedule page. It was easier to view before with all the programmes listed on one page. Now I have to scroll sideways and I hate scrolling!

Well, I was pretty disappointed when I entered ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One's new website yesterday and saw the new design, even though it does look better.

It could be a matter of getting used to it, but I already miss some of the old functions:

#1: One can no longer immediately spot the movies to be aired. There used to be the word FILM over a dark background, how could one miss them?

#2: The 8-day (Mon-Mon, or Wed-Wed, depending on the current day of the week) links on top and on the bottom for the weekly schedule are now gone! They were really useful and I sometimes advised webmasters in my own country to take a look at ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s efficient design. It's gone, now, even though that calendar on the right could be helpful too.

#3: When one clicks on a programme a page opens showing all kind of details, but one has to go back to check on other items; the details at the top of the daily schedule page were really handy.

#4: The link for 'Drama', or that for 'Film' for that matter, opens a page with an alphabetical list of shows, movies, etc, but there's no immediate reference to the dates of the next airings.

I hope this isn't a definitive version...

Braga
Portugal

Yes I agree with a lot of comments complaining that it's not easy to just find out what's on ALL channels and see it on ONE page.
Also don't like links at bottom of a LONG page - say ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳! abd linking to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2.
Please bring back the REALLY useful, easy to use and QUICK old pages. I know you won't but then I'll just stop using what used to be one of my favourite web sites.

the typeface on the 'new' bbc 3 website is ridiculously small. the whole image is one of style over usability.

Why are films not clearly marked as 'films' in the listings? It's irritating. There's nothing to differentiate them from ordinary programmes, especially one-off dramas or long documentaries. One film had every cast member marked down as 'actor'.

This needs sorting, it's just a shambles. There's just too much clever flash on this site now.

Sorry, you're right it is indeed javascript. And I found the schedules. Thanks.

How is the promised re-introduction of the weekly schedule coming along?

Still no sign of the main navigational tool (the calendar) being duplicated, conveniently, at the bottom of the screen... I'm really surprised. Surely it's such an obvious thing to do. Or is it maybe too much of a technical challenge..?

Aaargh! You've ruined it. It's slow, clumsy and garish. All I want to know is what's on TV tonight. Ever heard the expression KISS? It certainly applies here.

I seem to have missed the beta testing of the programme schedules pages, otherwise I would have made these comments then. Today is my first sight of them. Sorry to say I think they are a backward step. The previous design enabled a quick overview of the day's schedule. Now you are endlessly scrolling. Not good psychology in my view. And looking at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ 1 schedule page I would suggest that red is not the colour to choose when you are going to display lots of it.

Please give us back the old format for the schedules pages. It takes longer to go through the listings on the new formats:
* you keep having to go up and down the page cos there's no link to the next page at the bottom
* you keep having to go from side to side on the page to move from the listings themselves to the grid with the dates
* when you are on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳1 page and want to go, for example, to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 it takes you to the Beeb2 homepage not the listings pages.

That said, it's a great idea to be able to see the listings till the end of the month.

Time will tell if I think it's an improvement!
However, I would have thought that it might have occurred to someone that if I am checking on today's programmes, that I might be rather more interested in those which were to come rather than those that I've already missed. In other words, make the listings relative to the time of access - I'm sure that your web master could acheive this.

Im loving all the ability to streem the bbc channels, although there are some tech issues and i was abit disapointed when family guy came on and it said something about broadcast writes, why is family guy blocked and not heros?

These comments should probably go somewere else on the site.

anyways appart from these conflicts with american broadcasts, the only other issue is some of the channels constantly need to load and the broadcasts do not buffer so it skips key parts of programs, i was expecting a similar quality to the news on my connection with no problchannel which i can sit and watch for hours em.
I have a 512kbs connection which came with the room in my student accomodation, this is good enough to watch iplayer, 4od, and the ITV service.
Also before you say, student - tv licence, yes i do have one, its a shared house with a house licence.

edit:

i was expecting a similar quality to the news channel which i can sit and watch for hours on my connection with no problem.

sorry i was having a dislexic moment

Yes, please bring back a page where viewers can see what's on - all at once. (and thus easily avoid schedule conflicts or overlaps) As it is now, having to scroll through each channel's long list and remember what's on and then repeating for each channel again and again, is very frustrating.

Ah! I see for the moment its still there! Bless you!!! (& I'm smiling from ear to ear)

/cgi-perl/whatson/search/grid.cgi?MEDIUM=tv

I think this new concept is nuts really - it was so very convenient in the What's on listing to skim in 5 seconds through all 4 channel programs and find immediately what interests us. Now i have to click 20 times here and there and back and forth between ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ 1 and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 and so forth - and even then i still may not have a clue what to watch at 9:00 pm.
This is back to stone age - maybe the program directors of this website think about what is PRACTICAL to customers.
Now unfortunately this new concept upsets me so much that i can't appreciate other and eventually very good ideas that came with this change. We are now back to channel hopping and random lucky watching - that is faster than 20 website clicks - shame on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ for that - i will miss now many very good documentaries ... unless you can bring this ONE VIEW SEE ALL Back to live.

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What a mess.

I don't often go to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ home page, as I don't often watch television, but I wanted to know when the new series of Dr Who was starting.

The page is crowded, slow to load, and I get a message saying that a script is causing the page to run slowly. If I try to stop this the whole browser crashes.

Where can I find the text only version?

I'm sorry, but the schedule pages (e.g. /bbcone/programmes/schedules/london/2008/12/26%29 are a huge step backwards compared to the previous version.

The previous version was beautifully simple and easy to understand, a model of how it should be done.

With the new version, it's impossible to tell the type of each programme. As previous posters have commented, films are not highlighted (crucial year and director information is missing as well), but it's also impossible to tell where are the comedies, dramas, documentaries, etc at a glance (except for those rare people who can recognise and identify every title from memory).

Then there are entries such as:

17:30–17:40
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News
26/12/2008
The latest national and international news stories from the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, followed by Weather.

and:

03:15–03:20
Weatherview
27/12/2008
Detailed weather forecast.

Why are the dates there? It's not as though we are expecting last week's news, or next week's weather. The comments are a bit superfluous as well.

Then there are the genre pages (e.g. /bbcone/programmes/formats/films, /bbcone/programmes/formats/documentaries%29. Where are the dates/times of broadcast? In the case of films, again, where is the important date and director information? Why are titles beginning with "The" listed under "T"?

As I said, these pages used to be beautifully simple. Now, for me at least, they are almost unusable. To cap it all, the new pages appear to be slower as well. So, I am afraid I will have to go back to tvguide.co.uk.

Hello ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

You say "Far too many people have contributed to the above projects to list them individually; suffice to say it's been a truly pan-³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ effort ...."

In that case can I please ask why you have committed the HUGE OVERSIGHT of omitting the schedule-view-by-week listing format which was so enormously useful in the older (and much nicer, simpler) pages ?

For example still (blessedly) at
/radio4/schedule/week/

Please grasp that listeners and viewers who love the Beeb and want to use Listen again for audio or video need to look at ALL of "what was on last week" when searching for a programme heard (whose name we may not yet know). For that, we want the view-a-whole-week format : so why on earth, if so many people have contributed, have you left it out of the new version ???

Pleaae design for USEABILTY not "looks". The new homepages look like something off Cbeebies. We are grown ups: we don't need pretty colouring and masses of whitespace. We need tidy accessible content.


Mike Holt
Lifelong loyal ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ fan, exasperated by the 'twelve year olds' you seem to use in design

Dare I say that all the above posters seems to be saying the same thing - YOU'RE NOT LISTENING ARE YOU ?

Simple suggestion : why not, instead of redesigning pages willy nilly and getting such a bad result (as evidenced by the above), why don't you just put up a "planned pages in Beta" area - AND ASK US TO TEST AND TRY OUT NEW PAGES OUT FIRST ?

Beta-testing is a long-proven concept in the software world - ask the users to check it out and debug it for you for free - yet you seem not to have heard of it.

Please let those of us who know the Beeb better than you do - US - help you improve the site.

Mike Holt
Spokesman for the Ed Reardon generation (i.e. those who pay your salaries)
:-)

[ Oh and Dan - just to disprove the idea we get that you never actually read these comments, please drop me a line to show that you do by responding to me at info at nccl.biz (my work email). ]

Many thanks
Sincerely
Mike Holt

Please reinstate the What's On home page. You will make a great many more people happy! You could continue with your current page as well. (However looking at the majority of comments on this blog, you will have a greater number of hits with the What's On pages.) Otherwise you are sending people off to places like RadioTimes & TV Guide, which cannot be in the best interest of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.

I have 2 comments to make.

1. Please reinstate the FAST LOADING tv schedule where all channels are in one place.
This is especially needed since the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has removed the TV guide on Freeview.

2. Since the revamp, I am getting constant browser hangswhen trying to read ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ webpages, along with the following error message:

"A script on this page is causing Adobe Flash Player 9 to run slowly. If it continues to run your computer may become unresponsive"

When the What's on page was taken off I was not at al pleased but over time I've learned to really appreciate the new programmes pages. It has so much more information and the ability to check what was on last week, or last month as well as seeing the future schedules is excellent.

All I get is 'Not available in your area'.

Clearly Auntie has decided to deprive overseas viewers of Newsnight. I may not be a licence payer but I do pay indirectly by subscribing to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ channels via cable so deprive us of streaming news is simply monstrous. I will cancel my subscription and rely on CNN and steam radio from now on.

Hallo

Am I missing links somewhere?

I can't find what programmes aer going to have the Sign Language Interpreter onscreen or have Audio Description in The Week Ahead on bbc.co.uk, nor on Ceefax pages 601-609 and 631-635 nor 358 but am able to get this information when my Radio Times comes through the door.

Does the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ then still comply with the spirit of the Ofcom code on provsion for those with an auditory or visual impairment?

Many thanks for message 46.

Please would you ask the Ceefax and Red Button Editors and the See Hear and In Touch Teams to announce the accessibility changes to the /programmes pages when they happen, Dan?

It's awful. I want to see a list of what's on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 tonight, not sit there while the site grinds away trying to load 3 different Flash applets. I thought that my opinion of New ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ couldn't sink any lower after the digital pay TV fiasco, but congratulations, you proved me wrong!

Looks nice, but why did you remove the calendars for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 at the page of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ 1 and vice versa? It was so handy just to click into the other program. Now you have to go to the bottom of the program page and take more steps to get to the same result. No reason to make it more difficult.

I suppose there is not much one can do about the continual changes to the web site. It seems that just as one gets used to a new format, up pops another one!
What I am already missing on this latest page is the link to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 schedule, that was on the right near the calendar. This was very handy. I know there is a link to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 home page - right at the bottom of the page now, but then one has to look for the programme schedule.
One other question about the 'old' new format, which I didn't have time to ask as it wasn't there long enough (!!) is "why, when scrolling down the schedule page, does (did) the link to the other schedules not automatically follow. One always has (had) to scroll right back to the top to select another schedule.
It would be great if the links to schedules (not home pages) could be put back and even better if they moved with one when scrolling down the page.
I always live in hope.

the previous navigation on the "schedule" page was much better - you could go directly from the schedule page of the channel that you were looking at to another channel's schedule page. Now you have to go through the home page of each channel - why make this change, it's made navigation between the scheule pages more cumbersome. Not an improvement, a disapointing degredation of service

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can't find anything.

One feature of the old website that I sorely miss is the facility of moving from one channel's programme schedule to another's with a single click. On the new website I must use at least two clicks. Moreover, the icons for the other channels are placed at the bottom of the page instead of near the calendar.

Well the new 'super' site for watcing all the wonderful ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ programmes is a total didaster as soon as you cross the channel. It's only available for viewers in the UK. The old system was a bit fuzzy but at least you could watch it here in France. I am sure there are hundreds if not thousands of UK overseas residents who are mourning the old system just like me. Annus Domini creeping on and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is the strongest link to home. How I can survive without Jeremy Paxton in my living room now and then, I just don't know!

Can't find anywhere else to comment, can't find easy contact links (suspect this is deliberate)
Seeing the programme "My Life in Verse" on Friday 29th May is to be the first of four, I thought I would look to see who and when for the other three.
No information at all. Not a clue. is it weekly, monthly, yearly? Have you made them yet? Do you really not know?

I was exceedingly disappointed to discover on this new website that the eastenders page no longer provides text info on past episodes. this was a valid facility for those who have an almost non existent broadband supply due to location. it would be appreciated if it were restored -

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re simulcast web broadcasts
Since you asked for feedback on this subject: Please do continue the simulcast web broadcasts of your television programmes. Have no television at the moment and it is the only way I can watch...

Thank you.