Boxes move to mobile BBC

It seems like only yesterday I was writing about the new look BBC Homepage - an article that seems to have spread around the web due to it housing one of the first screenshots of the new look front.

Well now I’m going to write about the new look mobile homepage - the one you get to when you go to bbc.co.uk from a mobile phone browser that isn’t an iPhone or N90.

The picture above shows the new banner at the top of the page - it has the same bevel and theme as the rest of the new look BBC pages with the exception that it features the word Mobile at the bottom.

I have a mobile phone that isn’t really designed for web browsing, the screen is too small and the navigation wheel is a pain in the arse but this is an improvement in style over the old page.

It also makes it easier to find the increasing amount of content available on the platform from the BBC. Also, for those of us void of a decent navigation aid - it puts News, Sport and Featured content right at the top.

There is a more detailed explanation of what’s available and why it’s there and how it’s happened from the BBC Internet Blog and it includes long screengrabs of the Sport, News and Radio sections of the mobile version of bbc.co.uk.

According to Matthew Postgate, Controller of Mobile at BBC Future Media and Technology, this is the ‘refresh release’ with two more major releases due throughout 2008.

It makes the index pages slightly longer than before as each index includes sub boxes with two or more features listed in each - sport includes football with Top Stories and Score while music includes all the BBC Radio Stations with Station Schedule and about in each.





There is also better use of icons - with a box showing a straight feature link and a speaker showing … obviously a piece of audio - can you guess what depicts a video link?

It looks like the next release will focus on major events like the Olympics as well as major background infrastructure changes.

With millions of people in the UK now using their mobile phones to access the internet and a minority of them having displays big enough to handle a full web page (without using Opera Mini) - this is a nice addition.

Personally I use Opera Mini for all my browsing experience as it allows me to view the full page and has the same sort of wide and zoom functionality the iPhone offers.

Even the new BBC Homepage with all its customisation and boxes works well with Opera Mini but, as this new mobile release is pretty in depth - I’d like to be able to view it using Opera Mini.

What Opera Mini lets you do is see the whole page in your browser window - very tiny but it’s all there - and then scroll down and click the centre button to zoom in on the bit you want.

The only problem I’ve got with the new look BBC Mobile page is the amount of scrolling I have to do - if I can see an overview with Opera Mini the scrolling would be heavily reduced - any ideas?

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