More on the new R4 web site

I have just been through the screenshots, Leigh, on Anna's recommendation. It looks very impressive indeed. Well done, so far! Cheers! c.



;)

My overall impression is good, although I'm not sure that I'm quite convinced on the wavy tops of the Programmes, Schedule, Series and Episode pages. The tagging feature, however, sounds (and looks from the Episodes mockup) very interesting. I've been thinking for a while that the BBC should be using the /programmes pages to give useful links to similar programmes (related by topics, people involved, etc.) and it looks like you're heading in that direction; well done. Presumably they are linking to pages on the Topics beta ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/topics/ )?



Starting with the Introduction, is it really a good idea to have the text saying "ON RADIO 4 NOW: [Programme name]" on the left while having the Listen Live button on the right? I think it would make much more sense to put them together, like how it is on the iPlayer Radio 4 page ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_four ).



On the Homepage, which generally looks very good, it would be nice if you could find some way to show the most popular programmes in each genre (sometimes combining more than one genre, e.g. Entertainment and Comedy) on the homepage as well as the most popular programmes from across the whole of the station's output. The top ten list on iPlayer is often dominated by just a few programmes (e.g. The Archers is four episodes of the top ten as of this writing) and while this is of course representative of how popular these programmes are, it means that there isn't a great deal of variety.



For instance, you could have the list cycle through the various genres. So the popular programmes list would start off with showing the most popular of all Radio 4 programmes, but then after maybe 5-10 seconds it would change to showing the most popular entertainment and comedy programmes, then just the most popular dramas, then perhaps news and politics, etc. Of course there would be small pause, back and forward buttons (just like on the news ticker on the BBC News front page, except I would put the pause button in the middle) so that if a user wants to stop and examine one of the genre lists more closely, they could. I think this would give a greater sense of the breadth of programmes broadcast on Radio 4 and might help users to discover new programmes in genres that they might not normally listen to.

(my ramblings continued)



Also on the Homepage, could you please show the series name or number in the popular programmes listings (and ideally the popular podcasts list as well)? iPlayer (as of yesterday) now shows the full title and it think it would be good if the Radio 4 website did too. For instance, looking at the mockup, it shows "Book at Bedtime - Sun 01 Feb 2009" whereas on iPlayer it would now show "Book at Bedtime - [book title (series name)] - Sun 01 Feb 2009".



And one last thing on the Homepage, I noticed that the genres on the right don't match the genres currently used on iPlayer and on the Radio 4 /programmes page (and judging by the first two I can see in the Programmes page mockup, they don't match those either). That's a bit confusing.



On the Series page, I think you should move down the 'Go to website' link so that the short summary of the programme can be displayed in full without having to click 'read more', that would be very annoying and unnecessary. And where does the 'Go to website' link take you? To the programme's current website (which I'm guessing will be mothballed)? In that case, I think it should say 'Go to archived website' because my initial impression was that the page for each series *was* its own website. If you see what I mean. And is there a reason why the Listen button is so far over to the right? Surely it would look better aligned to the left with the rest of the text.



And finally, you said: "As we build up an archive of tagged programmes, our rich audio resource will become more accessible." Does this mean that you will continue to make available past episodes of certain series on the Radio 4 website indefinitely? If so, how will this work with iPlayer, where almost everything expires after 7 days (unless it's series-stacked or an episode of Panorama)?

Rebuilding the Radio 4 website was always going to be a huge task.



Not only is the sheer volume of content mind-boggling, but you also have the World's most difficult to please audience to satisfy!



No wonder it was one of the last pieces of the BBC online jigsaw that was put in place.



It's a little difficult to completely know whether you've failed or succeeded from just screenshots (though I'm grateful for the expanded annotated pages) but the 'look' seems to be clear and easy to use.



I agree that I'm not quite sure about the wavey header - I'd be interested to see a screencap of how this looks with the standard black BBC header and the Radio 4 header.



Good work though, and I look forward to seeing the whole thing shortly.

Well, personally, I don't see the need to fix what is not broken. But if you absolutely must, do please remember that Radio 4 users are literate. This means we feel insulted by the photos of Cryer, Toksvig et al pulling look-at-me-amn't-I-funny faces. We know they are brilliant, and that's one of the reasons we listen to R4. Duh. The photos also waste space.

Thank you.

Actually it is broken, in a sense.



It was clearly stated in the previous post that its a chore to maintain and is not properly integrated with the new BBC systems such as their Programmes site.

The sample pages certainly look promising. As someone who gets into his car to start a long journey, then turns on the radio only to find, invariably, that a programme that intrigues him is nearly at an end, I look forward to having an easier time finding that programme when I get home.

As an aside, I love the way Leigh has bunched together Barack Obama, Climate Change and Asthma. Is he trying to tell us something?

I like it. Clearly a great deal of thought and effort has gone into this. (I have expressed concerns elsewhere as to whether this lot is maintainable under increasing budgetary constraints, but that is perhaps best dealt with in another place.)



Anyway, some comments, in no particular order of importance:



1 According to the gospel of Seetha Kumar (https://bit.ly/seetha_kumar%29, her first BBC commandment is "Web sites and products should be designed to meet a clearly-defined audience need". Radio 4's mission statement is 'Intelligent Speech'. In terms of the website interaction currently allowed to us punters, this becomes 'intelligent text'. But what do we see in preponderance on the new Radio 4 pages? Pictures, pictures, pictures. The new site is bloated by content that is anathema to Radio 4's mission statement. Ok, this is a hardline comment, and I am being devil's advocate here, good graphical design being welcome and essential, but as an indication of what I would call 'navigational efficiency', the current Radio 4 homepage is about 80k total with about 70 to 80 links - what is the download size to link ratio in the new designs - ten times worse?? A hundred times worse??



2 I like the tabbed architecture, but I would like to see 'Blogs and Messageboards' to be added as a fourth, to accompany 'Programmes', 'Schedule' and 'Podcasts'. (You ARE going to mention the messageboards, aren't you?) For the proposed 'Blogs and Messageboards' link, I think it's linked page should also list the BBC News blogs, in view of news being an important part of Radio 4's role. (I purposely link Blogs and Messageboards - they are symbiotic for Radio 4 now I feel, and will increasingly be so in the future.)



3 On the homepage, I get the impression that the 'topical subjects and people' will be entirely dictated by news events. Who is controlling this bit - the Today/PM Teams? Is this a fair reflection of Radio 4 as a whole?



4 I don't much care for the 'Popular Programmes' listings - this is just a clone of the iPlayer listing. See Seetha Kumar's 3rd commandment - "Ensure there is nothing similar already published on BBC Online". Perhaps you should be listing the most listened-to programmes, i.e. not just the iPlayer ones. Or would that be uncomfortably close to revealing your listening figures?



5 On the 'Programmes' page, I would prefer the 'Genres/formats' listing to appear above the 'A to Z' listing. I really like the idea of the 'off-air' listings, but could not the 'show all/current/iPlayerable' options be combined somehow into the main 'A to Z' header on the 'Programmes' page?



6 Will the Genre listings also have linkages to off-air programmes?



7 The Schedule page is excellent.



8 On the 'Episodes' pages, there are a bunch of what seem adhoc links for 'People', 'Places', 'Subjects':



(i) Might not these be better on 'Series' pages?

(ii) Who is choosing these adhoc links?

(iii) Will these links be to Radio 4 pages? (Where does 'Physics' lead us to for example.)



9 In the general area of 'Extra information' and adhoc linkages, does Radio 4 plan to consider user-suggested input and interactivity? I refer you to the explanation accompanying Seetha Kumar's 8th commandment... (oh why can't I post a smiley here?)



10 There are what I call 'subcultures' underpinning the current Radio 4 site that are not evident in the new design. For example, the Commissioning and Writersroom pages (and their multitidinous links), which are relevant and common to the many of the genres - drama, readings, comedy etc. How will these essential 'subcultures pages' be accomodated?



11 Contact details should I feel be given wherever possible, in 'Series/Programmes' pages, and/or 'programme home' pages.



12 I do question whether 'Drama' and 'Readings' should be separate genres. I think making them separate will make sense only if their respective genre subpages are to have BBC staff who will be prepared to give these pages added value of their own, i.e. there's not much point in having a genre page if there isn't a staffer making it a worthwhile visit. Is Radio 4 prepared to resource all of the proposed genre pages?



13 There's a wealth of archive pages still accessible. Are these to remain? Will they be linked from series pages or genre pages, or will there need to be a dreaded 'miscellaneous' section? (An example of this are the Reith Lectures.)



'nuff for now



Russ [Broken link removed by Moderator]

Off - topic, put please could Mark Damazer pay attention...



I am not in favour of torture, but I might be willing to make an exception for Katharine Whitehorn.



What a hideously pompous, anglocentric and outdated view on life she betrays in herself.



When people talk about 'why do people hate America' they should be focusing on why people hate the British, and smug, patronising, haughty, supercilious people like this are the answer.



She betrays that classic prejudice of our time, class, and the condescending claptrap that comes with it - that anyone who is 'not one of us' should somehow be forced to become more like us, and that 'British' values [I'm sure that what she means are 'English Values' circa 1920 ] are what the whole world should aspire to.



She also has that awful snobbery towards arts and humanities and against science, so that no doubt she thinks pronouncing Einstein correctly is far more important, dahling, than understanding special relativity.



Please please please do not allow this awful snob to appear ever again on Radio 4 - it gives totally the wrong stereotypical impression of the station as a bastion of upper-class twits and White English monoculture - and is simply not acceptable in this day and age.



One suspects she speaks highly of me as well [!] and I'm sorry to speak in these terms, but she reminds of so many people who look down on me when they find out I'm Welsh and 'Working Class', despite in many cases having more wit, wisdom and intelligence than they will ever have.

Leigh:



I loved the "soon-to-be....Radio 4 new webpages....



I would like to know, when will it be debuting?

Radio 4....



~Dennis Junior~

Attn Steve Bowbrick - there had been a lot of comments elsewhere in earlier threads regarding Thought for Today and so on.



Maybe it would be worth askig for responses to such 'off-topic' postings (as there might sometime be such an avalanche that the blog could be unusable for sensible discussion, otherwise). Perhaps if you spot this, you could ask MD if he will ever write about Trails, as his early Feb post on Repeats suggested it would be done later that month...



I would have been tempted to comment at length in response to post #9 (Katharine Whitehorn's "A Point of View" on 20/03 was well argued, and something I would happily recommend to anyone) but you have precluded a robust response.

bowbrick - fair point - i did go 'off on one' there - but I do feel very strongly that 'class prejudice' is the last refuge of the scoundrel where radio 4 is concerned..



and i am opposed to torture in all its forms and circumstances - really.

@bowbrick - we can start discussions, perhaps, but heaven forbid we include something from the news, or Woman's Hour, or various other programmes (unspecified until one finds the thread is closed and deemed 'off topic')



Additionally, I see a marked difference in handling of user contributions which Leigh might be able to comment on (or someone else involved with web development).



If one goes on the Message Boards, and views posts ("your discussions") then one gets a list of threads on the MB, and a link to show blog comments ("your comments"), yet from this Blog, one can click a username, and get a *different* page only showing the blog comments, without a link to MB threads.



Will the comments page from the Blog ...blogs/profile/?userid=... going to show threads on the Message boards in future, or can it be made to link there?

Thanks for the feedback.



Now I wish I could find someone who can explain *why* topics from Women's Hour cannot go into the "The Choice is Yours" message board - it's not that I was a participant before the WH message board was closed, but having closed it, it seems to be forbidden to mention anything which comes up within those programmes.



Given some 50% of listeners are likely to be female, and possible listeners to that regular and long-standing programme, it seems quite crazy that the WH message board was closed.



One comment was how it was so popular it was beyond the staff to cope with it. So e-mail comments would be welcome (but that's a one-way street... the programme staff see all and can then selectively report on what comments they get, leaving discussion between individuals impossible)...



Further there was some comment from a host for "The Choice is Yours" MB saying that it was there for us to discuss programmes, but not the content (which made me wonder whether we could only discuss the personnel and technical issues, not subject matter, which also seems pretty daft).



I'm not the sort to keep track of all posts like that one, but will happily try to locate it if someone can give a "final" decision on whether "The Choice is Yours" can be used for Women's Hour-related topics, and if not, exactly *why* not, please.



As I indicate, I'm not one of the many users affected by the closure - I have only recently (comparitively) started using the Message Boards (I find the whole system, including having "opening hours" quite extraordinarily out of kilter compared with every other MB system I've used and moderated on, and continue to see complaints about the handling of comments put into the MB and "Have your Say"system, and have my own complaints {which I won't air here}).

@14 - oh how wrong you are to point to "The Choice is Yours" as if it were an "open forum" that was accepting of all and sundry (admittedly some threads have been necessarily rooted out).



One disappointing aspect is that there hardly ever seem to be any comments from BBC staff, except the dreaded 'Off topic here' when a thread is closed (and some are closed without even that comment).

Where's the "What's on Next" Information?

Thurs. 2 April I made 2 very critical comments of the Radio 4 website. I clicked on "Radio 4 Blog " to do this and my comment was posted beneath feedback on the 7 Jewish Children non - broadcast, instead of here, beneath the feedback on Radio 4 website. Instead of being transferred , my comments and those of another user with similar criticisms were summarily removed.

Today I restated my objections and posted them again, in the same way. I have just discovered this site for feedback - which is a comment on how tricky it is for the user .



Will it be possible to have my comment transferred from where I posted it to this site, instead of just removing them?

arlatan

Yesterday - 3 April - there were something like 30 very critical comments posted, all of them more recent than the feedback shown today.



WHERE ARE THEY?



I don't think the stuff you're showing at the moment reflects the strength of feeling aginst the new site. There's no point in publishing comments if you're cloaking the results.



arlatan

New = Yes

Different = Yes

Better = Only in your dreams!!!!



Did I read somewhere that the new CTO of the BBC was some young person who had come from Microsoft? If this is correct then it explains everything. You have been infected with the Microsoft Virus which impels you to take something that works, convert it to something that doesn't and, if possible, get people to buy it all over again and then blame someone else.

The site is now nonsense and you should all be ashamed of yourselves. The litany of complaints preceding this are absolutely correct in every detail.

New = Yes

Different = Yes

Better = Only in your dreams!!!!



Unfortunately when someone high up is persuaded an overhaul is a "good thing" (tm) and necessary, then having given the go ahead, they will find themselves having to support the team then involved in making the changes.



OK, so a majority of users have wide enough screens/browser windows to see all the page, but it seems a case of just 'tough' for those who don't - they seem not to count one iota.



(I nearly put something more forceful, but it could have led to the post being withheld!)

@bowbrick. Thanks for the reply. During the 8 - day interval I have discovered the confusing array of possibilities for expressing an opinion of the new web-site for radio4 .



I saw today that you've opened another one - I think that is what "Vital Signs" means to be.



It could be something less focused than that, and I truly don't understand quite what your introduction is saying. You use English in a way I haven't encountered before. Can you explain, please?



arlatan

@bowbrick. Thanks for the reply. During the 5-WEEK interval I have discovered the confusing array of possibilities for expressing an opinion of the new web-site for radio4 .



I saw today that you've opened another one - I think that is what "Vital Signs" means to be.



It could be something less focused than that, and I truly don't understand quite what your introduction is saying. You use English in a way I haven't encountered before. Can you explain, please?



arlatan