6 ms·

Can you ditch the 'breaking news' whilst you're at it too please? It's never really 'breaking' and is usually the headline of the landing page anyway. Usability

Can you ditch the 'breaking news' whilst you're at it too please? It's never really 'breaking' and is usually the headline of the landing page anyway. Usability wise, it's as bad as a pop-up ad. Like this, for example: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cu_KsFAWgAADCJR.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cu_KsFAWgAADCJR.png

bbcbreaking 10y ago
Please, please this. I don't care if news is just breaking. Just show me news in the order of importance. Or at the very very least, fix it so if I close the annoying breaking news box it doesn't jump back to the top of the page. Infuriating.
- wldlyinaccurate 10y ago
  On your last point — the new breaking news banner doesn't have the infuriating jump-to-top behaviour. At the moment the new banner is only on the new front page but I think we're going to backport it to other pages in the not-so-distant future.
  - bbcbreaking 10y ago
    This is at least an improvement. But can't the breaking news only appear if something breaks after I load the page, rather than on initial load? Even then... give me an option to set a cookie to never see it please.
    - wldlyinaccurate 10y ago
      I'll raise this with our product team. I think it's totally reasonable to expect the banner not to appear as soon as you load the page — if there's a breaking news story, it will already be on the page, right? So there's no need to also pop up a banner with the same story. But —this is a big "but"— I wouldn't expect this to happen soon. Changes take a long time at the BBC :)
      - bbcbreaking 10y ago
        Closing the breaking news now at least seems to be fixed (it no longer scrolls back to top). Thanks!
      - bbcbreaking 10y ago
        Thank you! I've been very close to stopping using the BBC news site recently due to the breaking news banner.
Lio 10y ago
I so agree with this. On mobile the BBC "Breaking News" popover is particularly annoying as you screen real estate is at such a premium and there's no keyboard to dismiss it. The best solution I've come up with is immediately reloading the page in the hope that there's a cookie to stop the "Breaking News" showing again. I'll just add, really like the new update. The new page feels much better (and the old one is really good already).
wldlyinaccurate 10y ago
The breaking news banner is a source of much internal conflict, at least within the engineering teams. I think most people agree that it's too big, and most people also agree that it's over-used. Unfortunately it's one of those things that editorial will not back down on — they must be able to push their breaking news to people, and it must be prominent (and therefore quite intrusive). There is a small improvement to the banner on the new front page (/news/0), which is that it's about 4 pixels shorter, and it's now grey instead of black which I think is much less abrasive.
- nailer 10y ago
  Who cares if editorial thinks it matters and you think it makes things worse? Act like engineers, work out what you want, test it and get some damn data on it.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    You're downvoted because you display ignorance of what it's like to work within a huge rigid bureaucracy where "just test it" mostly can't happen.
    - nailer 10y ago
      Adopting data-driven decision making requires cultural change. I understand cultural change in large organisations is difficult, you don't need to explain this. Difficulty of changing culture is, however, no excuse. The BBC is competing with Buzzfeed who've been doing data-driven decision making since inception. I'm fine with being downmodded by people who disagree, but it's worrying "get data on it" is being flagged on HN.
      - bonaldi 10y ago
        "It's not "get data on it" that's being flagged, I suspect, it's "who cares what editorial thinks?". Because as a recipe for success, riding roughshod over the opinions of 2000+ people who make all the content in your product is not a great one. What's more, BBC News editorial has reasons to be wary of pure data-driven decision making. It's not a pure Buzzfeed competitor -- it exists to serve the public purposes, not to drive eyeballs to ads. So arguments like "the data says nobody is reading our Welsh-language output, why don't we stop doing it?" or "The expensive pages covering Cornwall are getting terrible numbers, who care what editorial thinks, CLOSE 'EM DOWN" are not the slam-dunk you might be imagining. That's not to say there isn't useful data that can be put at the heart of the newsroom to try and capture things that matter to the BBC, as BBC News is well aware. They're building tools right now to support that [1]. But I think any editorial team will always want a way to say to its audience "we think this is important right now and you should know about it". So a constructive approach might be something more like "here is the most effective way you can highlight news to audiences" not "we don't care what you think, people don't like the breaking news ticker so it's gone, welcome to cultural change granddad". [1] https://www.newsrewired.com/2016/07/20/how-editorial-analytics-can-be-used-effectively-in-the-newsroom/ https://www.newsrewired.com/2016/07/20/how-editorial-analyti...
deanCommie 10y ago
The problem isn't the breaking news banner. If aliens make contact with humanity, you better believe I want an intrusive popup. The problem is what the editorial board considers breaking news has been completely diluted and diminished both for the BBC and CNN
- ape4 10y ago
  Breaking news: Spicer holds press conference.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  If the banner is always there, something has to be put into it, sadly.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    It's certainly not always there, at least for me?
  - saghm 10y ago
    That sounds like a compelling argument not to always have it there. If anything, it would be more noticeable if it only showed up sometimes as opposed to it always being present.
DanBC 10y ago
Normally I'd just upvote this and not leave a comment, but BBC can't see those upvotes. Please, BBC, I really dislike the breaking news banner and I'd love the option to turn it off.

bbcbreaking 10y ago

Please, please this. I don't care if news is just breaking. Just show me news in the order of importance. Or at the very very least, fix it so if I close the annoying breaking news box it doesn't jump back to the top of the page. Infuriating.

wldlyinaccurate 10y ago
On your last point — the new breaking news banner doesn't have the infuriating jump-to-top behaviour. At the moment the new banner is only on the new front page but I think we're going to backport it to other pages in the not-so-distant future.
- bbcbreaking 10y ago
  This is at least an improvement. But can't the breaking news only appear if something breaks after I load the page, rather than on initial load? Even then... give me an option to set a cookie to never see it please.
  - wldlyinaccurate 10y ago
    I'll raise this with our product team. I think it's totally reasonable to expect the banner not to appear as soon as you load the page — if there's a breaking news story, it will already be on the page, right? So there's no need to also pop up a banner with the same story. But —this is a big "but"— I wouldn't expect this to happen soon. Changes take a long time at the BBC :)
    - bbcbreaking 10y ago
      Closing the breaking news now at least seems to be fixed (it no longer scrolls back to top). Thanks!
    - bbcbreaking 10y ago
      Thank you! I've been very close to stopping using the BBC news site recently due to the breaking news banner.

Lio 10y ago

I so agree with this. On mobile the BBC "Breaking News" popover is particularly annoying as you screen real estate is at such a premium and there's no keyboard to dismiss it. The best solution I've come up with is immediately reloading the page in the hope that there's a cookie to stop the "Breaking News" showing again. I'll just add, really like the new update. The new page feels much better (and the old one is really good already).

wldlyinaccurate 10y ago

The breaking news banner is a source of much internal conflict, at least within the engineering teams. I think most people agree that it's too big, and most people also agree that it's over-used. Unfortunately it's one of those things that editorial will not back down on — they must be able to push their breaking news to people, and it must be prominent (and therefore quite intrusive). There is a small improvement to the banner on the new front page (/news/0), which is that it's about 4 pixels shorter, and it's now grey instead of black which I think is much less abrasive.

nailer 10y ago
Who cares if editorial thinks it matters and you think it makes things worse? Act like engineers, work out what you want, test it and get some damn data on it.
- DanBC 10y ago
  You're downvoted because you display ignorance of what it's like to work within a huge rigid bureaucracy where "just test it" mostly can't happen.
  - nailer 10y ago
    Adopting data-driven decision making requires cultural change. I understand cultural change in large organisations is difficult, you don't need to explain this. Difficulty of changing culture is, however, no excuse. The BBC is competing with Buzzfeed who've been doing data-driven decision making since inception. I'm fine with being downmodded by people who disagree, but it's worrying "get data on it" is being flagged on HN.
    - bonaldi 10y ago
      "It's not "get data on it" that's being flagged, I suspect, it's "who cares what editorial thinks?". Because as a recipe for success, riding roughshod over the opinions of 2000+ people who make all the content in your product is not a great one. What's more, BBC News editorial has reasons to be wary of pure data-driven decision making. It's not a pure Buzzfeed competitor -- it exists to serve the public purposes, not to drive eyeballs to ads. So arguments like "the data says nobody is reading our Welsh-language output, why don't we stop doing it?" or "The expensive pages covering Cornwall are getting terrible numbers, who care what editorial thinks, CLOSE 'EM DOWN" are not the slam-dunk you might be imagining. That's not to say there isn't useful data that can be put at the heart of the newsroom to try and capture things that matter to the BBC, as BBC News is well aware. They're building tools right now to support that [1]. But I think any editorial team will always want a way to say to its audience "we think this is important right now and you should know about it". So a constructive approach might be something more like "here is the most effective way you can highlight news to audiences" not "we don't care what you think, people don't like the breaking news ticker so it's gone, welcome to cultural change granddad". [1] https://www.newsrewired.com/2016/07/20/how-editorial-analytics-can-be-used-effectively-in-the-newsroom/ https://www.newsrewired.com/2016/07/20/how-editorial-analyti...

deanCommie 10y ago

The problem isn't the breaking news banner. If aliens make contact with humanity, you better believe I want an intrusive popup. The problem is what the editorial board considers breaking news has been completely diluted and diminished both for the BBC and CNN

ape4 10y ago
Breaking news: Spicer holds press conference.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
If the banner is always there, something has to be put into it, sadly.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  It's certainly not always there, at least for me?
- saghm 10y ago
  That sounds like a compelling argument not to always have it there. If anything, it would be more noticeable if it only showed up sometimes as opposed to it always being present.

DanBC 10y ago

Normally I'd just upvote this and not leave a comment, but BBC can't see those upvotes. Please, BBC, I really dislike the breaking news banner and I'd love the option to turn it off.