Project Duration
2 weeks
Course
Information Architecture (IACT 370) Ascanio Colonna di Paliano
Tools
Figma, Keynote, Adobe Illustrator
Objective
This project was an individual project that lasted 2 weeks during the beginning of the quarter. My goal was to understand the current platforms and Information Architecture(IA) of BBC News. Through careful analysis of how their digital platforms currently worked I would be equipped to redesign one of the platforms.
Background
BBC is the largest broadcast news operation in the world. They strive to make politics more accessible to the general public, particularly those living in the UK. Their goals include being impartial, fair and accurate in their journalism and supporting learning for people of all ages.
“13.3m users worldwide visit the BBC News site...”
“260 million viewers through the international TV news channel BBC World..."
"More than 150 million listeners via BBC World Service.”
Platforms (Web and Mobile)
Web
Mobile
Organization Scheme
BBC News uses a Subjective Organization Scheme that is organized by topic. This scheme can be helpful for enabling the audience to draw connections between pieces of content. With such a wide range of content, however, redundancy and ambiguity in labeling can be an issue.
Organization Structure
BBC News uses a largely hierarchical system for its web content. This organization structure is a top-down approach that emphasizes parent-child relationships of hierarchy. The home page is at the top and underneath that are subcategories.
The web platform of BBC News is broad and deep due to large amounts of diverse content. The different colors represent the different levels of the site, with more colors making the website deeper.
The mobile platform is also broad but much more shallow, largely due to how users interact with content on a small screen.
Areas of Focus for Mobile Platform
1. Eliminating redundancy in the personalized news content
2. Reduce scrolling for the user by reducing and reorganizing menu items
3. Create a better sense of hierarchy for appropriate menu items
Redesign
In the mobile app users can select news topics they are interested in to become part of their personalized news feed. There are 3 different ways to access this content, which is unnecessarily redundant.
I created a simpler experience by giving users 1 place where they can access all of their news content.
Previously the scrollable navigation bar included a menu item for each topic you added to your personalized news, in addition to the menu items shown below.
I reduced the number of menu items to only the 5 menu items the user needed the most.
Previously the hamburger menu did not show a strong sense of hierarchy like the web platform does.
I created a drop-down menu called “World” that encompasses all the menu items that are regions of the world.
