BBC News website redesign
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Given the structure of the organisation I wish they would be a bit more open though.
edit: tried to make myself sound less like a bot!
The best answer would be an isolated image over black (or a lightbox effect) but alas their CMS probably doesn't support this kind of display.
I like and welcome the changes, which I'm certain were huge in terms of technical work to achieve them. When I worked on it the BBC News Website had 6 month+ type iterations which meant relaunches and redesigns had to be limited to every couple of years.
My biggest grip with the design is that there still appears to be fewer news stories (what we called display items internally) on the page than other sites such as CNN. I am waiting for the site to launch to actually test that.
I also am not sure whether squaring off a single playback box for video is the right approach over blending in lots of video stories as equal citizens to text stories through-out the site (something CNN and others do v well). Again, time will tell once the site launches.
Overall, I'm slightly disappointed there is nothing radically new or experimental (and even a little copied from CNN perhaps) but I know that Paul Sissons and the rest of the design team and BBC News have done a fine job and I look forward to using it.
I believe the BBC's customizable front page is aimed at consumers of the domestic UK BBC output who naturally consume their own personal set of BBC output (6+ TV stations, 7 national radio stations, tons of local radio stations, all of the different programme-related websites).
The idea of the BBC front page (ie www.bbc.co.uk) is that you can pull together a customized front page that reflects the tastes and choices you have in the BBC's output.
Outside of the UK most of those options are not available and so it seems less valuable.