After many long months of trying out the latest BBC News app from odd ball independent developers, some being heavier and slower to use than others, it’s wonderful to finally see BBC News finally and officially make its way on Android as of end of May. But what makes it so welcome is its bewildering beauty, especially for the BBC, in comparison to its arch rival, BskyB’s Sky News app with its more run of the mill list view.
Since the iOS version of the BBC News app launched, it seemed almost certain that a lot of influences were taken from Pulse a super RSS aggregator which uses a ribbon theme throughout to display news, making the most of the mobile screen space. And it works. I use it all the time. However, there are certain parts of the design which have puzzled me for a while. For example, it was only by accident when I first downloaded the Pulse news app, a couple of months back, that I discovered I could scroll/swipe along each ribbon to see more stories. When someone looks at the screen, it seems a little too complete and static, with no indication to show that they can swipe along, a less common gesture for browsing for more content on the internet/RSS apps, typically using a scrolling down gesture.
However, the Android version seems to have addressed the iOS and the Pulse version of this with a slight redesign of this view. This includes less stories on the front screen, with two main windows on each ribbon, but with a third story window on each ribbon poking through on the right to suggest to users more located when they scrolled along. The only other mainstream use I can think of this affordance is in Windows Phone 7.
So it’s great to see this!
Nice post,
The BBC’s approach seemed to have developed Pluse’s design. What do you think the ribbon UI will evolve to? I would like to know if anyone has moved this style on?
Good questions Derrick, thanks for posting. I’m not entirely sure what this will evolve to. But I see this as a UI template for mobile that a lot of other news orgs will follow. It makes the most of a mobile’s tiny screen.
Perhaps one way of improving the UI for the BBC is including an option (e.g. when the screen is rotated horizontal) to give a sort of cover flow similar to the Guardian iPad app which pulls up high definition photos of stories with a small description at the bottom if activated. A sort of randomised set which plays in the background pulling up news images. The Guardian’s app if you’ve not seen it is here. Here’s a bigger picture of it in this article.