At a recent monthly departmental meeting, I met Seetha Kumar, controller of BBC Online. Seetha is responsible for the editorial and strategic development of the mammoth web presence that is bbc.co.uk and she reports to the BBC Trust.BBC Online faces many challenges as it continues to scale and must move and adapt quickly to keep up with new technologies and trends. Some of the challenges I have encountered since I started working on sites for the BBC include;
- How can we make each site/offering unique yet remain part of the BBC site and brand?
- How do we bridge the gap in tone and voice between sometimes serious hard hitting sites such as Revealed and comedy sites such as The 5:19 Show?
- How can we make sure we aren’t replicating content already existing on the site?
- How do we ensure we aren’t reinventing the wheel over and over again when designing page elements?
- How can we best move users through the site to content most relevant to them?
These are exactly the types of questions Seetha was tasked with answering and this week she has published her ten very insightful publishing priciples for BBC Online. However, these principles are not unique to the BBC and should be a must read for every website owner, however big or small.It is continually drummed into us at the BBC to put audiences at the heart of everything we do. This is something that every website owner should also do.?? Design and develop with your user at the heart of your process at all times. Only then will you see your site reach it’s full potential.I’ve reproduced Seetha’s guidelines below but they can also be found on the BBC Internet Blog.1. Web sites and products should be designed to meet a clearly-defined audience needAnticipate needs not yet fully articulated by audiences and meet them with products that set new standards and even exceed expectations.2. The best websites do one thing really, really wellDo less, keep it simple, execute perfectly.3. Ensure there is nothing similar already published on BBC OnlineWe are all contributors to one website. How are you adding to what exists already? Can you reuse what has been built and is your content, in turn, reusable? Don’t create a web cul-de-sac – we have so many of those already!4. Any website is only as good as its worst pageEnsure best practice editorial processes, technology and UX standards are adopted and adhered to. Your content may be linked to, forever, so plan for the full lifecycle. Consider how will it look in three year’s time, how it can be curated. Will it degrade gracefully – or should you set a date for it to be mothballed or archived?5. Accessibility is not an optional extraSites designed that way from the ground up work better for all users. Your site should, where appropriate, easily translate into other languages.6. Maximise routes to contentHow will people know your site exists? Keep the URL as simple and memorable as possible (and remember that all URLs should be lower case). Optimise your site to rank high in Google and other search engines. Develop permanent URLs and contextualise with as many aggregations of content about people, places, topics, channels, networks and time as possible.7. Free up your content for consumers to take awayDon’t reinvent Facebook or Bebo – just make it easy for users to take nuggets of content with them, with links back to your site or the wider BBC from wherever they are. Wherever and whenever users find your content make sure the feedback loops work.8. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves – “do what you do best and then link to the rest“Link to other high-quality sites – your users will thank you. Use other people’s content & tools to enhance your site and vice versa.Don’t feel you have to host the conversations about your content, just link to them or join in as appropriate.9. Consistent design & navigation needn’t mean one-size-fits-all Users should always know they’re on a BBC website, even if it doesn’t look exactly like another. Clear signposting is vital to ensure users won’t get lost within or beyond your site.10. Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparentAfter all, it’s our users’ most personal data – respect it. And adhere to our forthcoming cookie policy!
Thoughts From My Head 