Designing BBC Mobile

The design team behind the bbc.co.uk’s mobile capabilities explain how they did it and where their developments are headed

BBC Mobile is an attempt to squeeze Britain’s largest and most comprehensive website on to some of the smallest screens around.

From full desktops to smartphones and mobiles, the site’s range of content is held together within a framework designed to deliver audio, video and interactive content, regardless of platform. And the most incredible thing about it? It works.

According to Richard Titus, the BBC’s controller of audio, music and mobile, mobile design and development is a key cornerstone of the BBC’s future innovation plans. These include the task of delivering a digital Britain – through the digital switchover and more – which is a mainstay corporation goal. More than that, though, is the belief that mobile is a genuine opportunity to connect with new audiences in new and evermore innovative ways.

“The BBC has the broadest user base in Britain,” says Titus. “We thought about who needs this service and how we can use it to drive a deeper relationship with other users, such as the young, who may be more disaffected with the BBC.”

From desktop to mobile

In January 2008, the redesigned BBC homepage was fully deployed. The BBC mobile development team’s task was to ensure that the very same content and services available from a desktop could be accessed via mobile handsets.

One of the drawbacks was unifying content across different operating platforms and runtimes. Whereas browser compatibility defined what could and could not be worked into the main BBC site redesign, platform unification presents a parallel problem on mobile handsets: BBC mobile delivers the same content as the full site, just lacking in customisable mechanisms – though such functionality is just around the corner.

In effect, the team developed three separate versions of the mobile site: Standard, Enhanced and PDA. The Standard version contains both audio and video features, and is essentially a standard WAP-friendly site with fast functionality. PDA is much the same, but is designed specifically for smartphones and offers fewer features and scaled-back imagery. The Enhanced version is the most advanced and hints at the direction the team is taking BBC mobile. Visually it’s far richer, contains better formatting and is easier to navigate. The site is based on XHTML, with better video and audio provisions deployed via a variety of technologies.

“The existing site uses a combination of hand-coded static pages and static pages generated by a bespoke feed processor,” Titus explains. “We’re getting close to releasing a new version of our site using the BBC’s new dynamic infrastructure – a combination of LAMP and Java – that will enable better per-device optimisation, personalisation and all the usual web 2.0 benefits.”

It’s these last elements that will be key to the next stage of the BBC’s mobile development. While the BBC’s homepage on a desktop can be personalised by locality

The future’s mobile

“We’ve had a presence on mobile since the development of WAP, and it has evolved over the years,” explains Matthew Postgate, controller of research and innovation at the BBC.

“It degrades depending on the site and device, and we still have black-and-white WML 1.0 for users who need it. Its purpose is to offer the best of the BBC in a handheld device. It’s emerged from a journalism, weather and sport offering into other areas.” It’s the BBC’s ability to cater for both mainstream and niche markets that will drive its mobile development. According to Postgate – who identifies core interests in news and weather, for example, as the driving factors to more niche subjects and services – as soon as users interact with one personalised service on a mobile handset, they will quickly embrace more.

Mobile developments in the pipeline include the ability to personalise a mobile site much like the home site, choosing applications and feeds like the Recipe Finder and sports headlines. Developing these across a range of handsets and architectures is a big ask, however. And while the mobile web can pose enormous difficulties for developers, says Postgate, they shouldn’t lose hope: “It’s a dark art, and it’s getting better – there has to be good content out there, but handset capability has improved and we’re seeing more transparent pricing from the networks.”

With all of these factors falling in to place, it’s easy to see why the BBC is investing heavily in the mobile web.

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