Adactio: Links

BBC Blogs - Internet Blog - BBC UX&D on creating a GEL foundation for everyone

Al runs through the process of updating GEL—the BBC’s Global Experience Language design system. I particularly like the thought that’s gone into naming type sizes.

BBC iWonder - Who made the web so hard to control?

A great little primer on the origins of the internet and the web, by Aleks.

Hamburger icon: How these three lines mystify most people - BBC News

The controversial hamburger icon goes mainstream with this story on the BBC News site.

It still amazes me that, despite clear data, many designers cling to the belief that the icon by itself is understandable (or that users will “figure it out eventually”). Why the aversion to having a label for the icon?

Responsive News — We’ve made it.

The responsive BBC News site is live! Hurrah!

Here’s a look at the highs and lows of the site’s story, emphasising the importance of progressive enhancement and all that enables: feature detection (by “cutting the mustard”), conditional loading, and a mobile-first approach.

BBC - Future Media Standards & Guidelines - Accessibility Guidelines v2.0

The minimum dependency for a web site should be an internet connection and the ability to parse HTML.

BBC - Future - The invisible network that keeps the world running

Tim Maughan reports on the same container ship trip that Dan W. is sending his postcards from.

I like the idea of there being an Apollo-sized project all around us, if you just know where to look.

First, towering above and over the ship, are the loading cranes. Vast structures mounted on huge, four-legged frames, they resemble the naked scaffolding of unbuilt skyscrapers, and trigger nostalgic reminders of Saturn V rocket launch towers from the 1960s.

Once in port at night I saw one suddenly fire into life next to the ship in a stroboscopic explosion of lights, before it tracked slowly above my high vantage point, bathing me in the orange glow of a dozen small halogen suns.

BBC World Service - Click, dConstruct Conference

This episode of Click on the BBC World Service does a great job of distilling some of the ideas and themes from this year’s dConstruct.

The Click podcast is available for your huffduffing pleasure.

Two years ago dConstruct’s theme was “Playing with the Future”. Last year it was “Communicating with Machines”. This year’s theme is “Living with the Network”. Click interviews artists, writers, hackers and coders about surveillance, connected devices, big data, and whether the ideals of the internet have been too far corrupted for them ever to be preserved.

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Game - 30th Anniversary Edition

One of the most fiendish user-unfriendly (but oh-so-witty) adventure games of all time is now online for you to enjoy with some added graphical flourishes.

BBC Click: 10 Sept 2013: Brighton Digital Festival on Huffduffer

A report from the BBC on this year’s Brighton Digital Festival including interviews with Honor, Timo, and Seb.

Responsive News — Response-ish Web Design

Details on how the BBC Responsive News team plan to eventually make their m-dot site scale all the way up to be the default site. This “planting a seed” approach works really well, not least for political reasons.

It’s something that The Guardian and The Chicago Tribune are working on too.

BBC News - Geek camp comes to Milton Keynes

Watch the video to see Jonty’s rather good tour of EMF.

Testing For Dummies | Testing

An in-depth look at the BBC News mobile testing process. I think it’s great that people are sharing this kind of information.

BBC - BBC Internet Blog: BBC News on mobile: responsive design

BBC News are using the mobile subdomain to plant the seed of responsive design. It’s a smart move that’s been really nicely executed.

BBC - BBC Internet Blog: BBC World Service Language Websites: user experience and typography

A fascinating look at the intersection of typography and internationalisation on the BBC’s World Service site.

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - The Reith Lectures

The entire archive of the Reith lectures is now online for your huffduffing pleasure.

BBC News - Are you experienced? Business and the web user experience

A nice overview of the increasing importance of UX on the web, written by Bobbie with soundbites from Andy.

Wikipedia:List of articles with doomed BBC links - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read it and weep. Here are the articles on Wikipedia that reference URLs that are getting axed as part of the BBC’s upcoming cull.

Main Articles: ‘Domesday Redux: The rescue of the BBC Domesday Project videodiscs’, Ariadne Issue 36

The fascinating story of the BBC Domesday Project and its subsequent fate.

The purpose of the CAMiLEON project was to demonstrate the value of emulation in preserving not only the data stored in obsolete systems but the behaviour of the systems themselves - in this case one of the very first interactive multi-media systems. The aim was to reproduce the original user experience as accurately as possible, and the CAMiLEON team argued that the slight faults in images as displayed from the analogue discs were a part of that experience, and should not be cleaned up as Andy proposed to do. Our aim was different - we wanted to preserve the data with the highest quality available consistent with longevity.

Pulling the plug on the BBC’s internet history « 853

The BBC’s decision to actively delete old content (rather than simply allowing it to take up some space on a server) really gets my blood boiling.

The BBC asked the public to contribute their memories of World War Two to a website between June 2003 and January 2006…” and five years later some suit decided to bin them.

YouTube - BBC Horizon (1964) with Arthur C. Clarke (Part 1 of 2)

Past predictions of the future.

GELLED!

Paul has created a site for tracking usage of the BBC’s GEL (Global Experience Language) visual design language. Nice’n’responsive it is too.

BBC - Radio 4 Blog: Some changes to the Radio 4 web site

A few notes on the recent re-align of the Radio 4 website by Clearleft.

BBC - Dimensions - Index

New from BERG: superimposing historical events onto familiar landscapes.

Open Rights Group | Ofcom agrees to allow the BBC to hobble HD receivers

Offcom are not representing my interests as a consumer. This is a disgraceful decision.

A New Visual Design Language for BBC Online — Paul Robert Lloyd

Paul takes an in-depth look at the new BBC design guidelines.

BBC - My Web My Way - Home

A handy accessibility resource from Auntie Beeb.

BBC - Glow JavaScript Library

The BBC have released their JavaScript library. This one is worth paying attention to for its wide browser support base.

Shownar

An experimental prototype that tracks the online buzz around BBC programmes (before they disappear down the memory hole of the iPlayer's time-restricted playback).

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Stevie Wonder interview

Stevie Wonder talks about assistive technology. I think this finally proves that yes, accessibility *is* sexy!

BBC Builders: Web developer Simon Cross on personalisation and the semantic web |

A lovely shout-out to Clearleft from the BBC: "Along with other awesome UK companies like ClearLeft, we hope the work we're doing influences more web companies to adopt more best practice, like following the principle of 'progressive enhancement'."

BBC - Radio Labs - How we make websites

Michael Smethurst runs through the process used in his bit of the BBC. It's all good.

BBC - Future Media Standards & Guidelines - Browser Support Standards v3.3

A document outlining browser support standards for bbc.co.uk

Platitude of the Day

A satirical parody of the BBC's "Thought for the Day". Slightly cruel, mostly funny and entirely brilliant.

BBC World Service - Find A Programme - Digital Planet

The BBC were at dConstruct. This podcast episode includes interviews with Steven Johnson, Aleks and the the Dopplr Matts.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Where do you think you are?

BBC coverage of dConstruct on "The widening web of location-based web services."

Subtitles

Now you can perform data analysis on the subtitles of the most recent series of Doctor Who, courtesy of the brilliant Matthew Somerville.

The Acorn Electron Haven - Usborne Publishing Section

Prompted by my post on adventure games, Relly sent me this link to a wonderfully archaic series of books from 1983.

Cleverest crows opt for two tools

Crows is smart. And yes, I am using the "Bookmark this..." link at the end of the article.

BBC NEWS | Help | Social bookmarking links

Et tu, BBC?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Pull down the walled gardens

The need for portable social networks hits the mainstream press: Professor Michael Geist writes an article for the BBC website.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Should we simplify spelling?

The cawl for speling reform in the Inglish langwidge iz misguyded and franklee, kynd ov styoopid.

BBC NEWS | England | Sussex | Man attempted to stab policeman

The somewhat lightweight BBC report of the incident I blogged about earlier. "Reports of a man with a knife threatening and chasing people": that's me (the reports, I mean).