h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please no, it looks a lot like the Radio 4 homepage design and the level of utter condemnation and criticism around it is amazing.

The main issue is that it's functionality is worse, it's dumbed down, less information on pages and just not needed.

The old Radio 4 webpage was very much like the current hootoo ones. Full of stuff, easy to see lots of stuff and go to what you need straight away.

The new radio 4 web design felt like an insult to the large majority of us: we are intelligent, generally quick witted people who can cope with and prefer seeing a lot of information that can be quickly desseminated and the best option chosen.

Reducing the amount of information, have bigger pictures etc slows the whole thing down and gives a Mothercare feel to the whole thing.

See the blog page here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2009/04/your_feedback_on_the_redesign.html

I rarely go to the Radio 4 webpage these days since its LOUD INYOURFACE redesign.

I have to disagree, as an aged R4 listener, mostly via the internet, I was perturbed initially by the changes. Now I realise that it is a lot clearer, less muddled and less prone to breaking links. I hope that hootoo benefits from the same sort of redesign.

Hello 3Dots/Lanza,

The Radio 4 page serves a very different purpose to ours, and so there'll be a lot of differences between their page and ours. The whole point is to make the site *more* accessible, so we're really trying not to lose site of the bits that work on the current homepage. What bits do you think work best?

Ours will still have a lot of links, but hopefully ones people are more likely to use (to jump straight into conversations, rather than accessing the categorisation at strange junctures).

The main similarity will be in the (relatively) large promo picture. But ours won't be as large as Radio 4's.

I think that the current h2g2 homepage is probably only really easy to use if you're entirely used to the layout. (And since it's been there for seven years, a lot of people will be extremely familiar with it! ) We want it to be more intuitive from the word go, really - but suggestions about what you think works or doesn't work are really helpful.

Thanks!

And you should know by now what a bunch of arsey people we can be when we don't agree with something on the site!

I suspect that H2G2 is now an anomaly that the BBC don't know what do do with, I think it will be agreat shame if it becomes part of the "Corporate" image of the main site, perhaps the long term plan is to assimilate into the BBC forum regime so H2G2 will be lost forever......DNA will be turning on his mattress sucking his towel

We can hope not - there must be *someone* in the higher echelons who isn't a corporate clone and can see why Hootoo should remain the...darn, can't use racist un-pc saying about a woodpile...but would be perfect here. We are that saying and that person and proud of it!

(Hopefully, no offense has been given here.)

The H2g2 Editors do stick up for the site a lot...and as we are a bit of a back-water I don't think get the budget other areas do so we sit here having fun but on comparitively antiquated software etc.

The big maon with the new information-lite pages is that ironically you take longer to get to somewhere you want and also miss alot of stuff because you don;t see the odd link that you just click on out of curiosity...strangly a more cluttered frontpage with more on it gives more opportunities of finding new things.

I feel quite hopeful that the future of h2g2 is safe - yes we are quirky - but we are comparatively cheap with most of the work being done by volunteers.

I think the Front Page could be improved a lot, by a radical redesign to make it look clearer and more sophisticated. The many interesting links could still be kept on the FP by using drop down menus. This would also make navigation a lot less confusing.

oooo, we don't do sophisticated here...only in the quality of our psots...

The thing with the regular forums when you submit a post then you have to wait 2 minutes I think it is before re-posting, just would not work with the quick fire responses posted sometimes on Hootoo.

Also you have such a good record of what you have done and where you have been, not the case with BBC forums, I presume we will still retain our "my space" area with journals and so on

CoolFriday - we will be keeping our personal spaces, yes. It sounds like they will be the subject of another redesign further down the line.

hmmm...step by step until no more

Personally, I think a redesign is fantastic. It will probably gain us new members because a lot of newbies are put-off by difficulty navigating the site.

Besides, the Italics know what we like about hootoo, they know what it is, and they won't let that get sidelined.

CoolFriday


Yes, that would be a killer for this site.

This did come up a few years ago when the regular forums had it imposed. Not sure whether we got ignored or whether we got specially treatment.

It is worth a reply from the Ed's!

also on the beeb forums there is more of a dictorial regime by the moderators whereas ours are much more layed back

>I suspect that H2G2 is now an anomaly <

I like anomalies...gives life zest. The joker in the pack as it were at the BBC.

And like I posted to a recent newbie who was a bit lost, 'you have to lose yourself to find yourself.'

But then I like the writings of Jorges Luis Borges. All his work is basically labarythine. I enjoy getting lost in h2g2's weird corridors.

Okay I understand that change can sometimes be needed, to make the front page look a bit more cool, but I just hope to God it doesn't just turn into some easy peasy, ultra user friendly thing. yes I know I'm a bit weird. But the best web design IMO is about being interesting, not being ultra ergonomic.

But please please that they don't go near that godawful Brunel green you get in the general pages.

And what's seriously worrying me is that I won't be able to recreate my 'flying ants' ps. I spent weeks fiddling with that to get the pattern and speed just right.

CoolFriday

Christ, yes! 'Anna' on the Radio 4 messageboards is awful. Even 'The CHoice is Yours' forum isn't your choice. They just close the trhead down and say go to thsi one...but you never do.

Effers



Exactly, it makes you work a bit. Everything these days has to be instantly accessible but life's not like that. It's more fun finding things here and there. I use only a small amount of what Hootoo has to offer but that's not a problem. It suits me!

There's other areas that look good for people but not my bag but it is findable after a bit.

Also, Hootoo like any community is one where you wander about meet people and never meet them again but bump into others that you speak to for years. It's serves different purposes and it would be a shame if it became something that did not exclude people i.e. every bit was accessible to everyone because that would make it bland and insipid.

< what's seriously worrying me is that I won't be able to recreate my 'flying ants' ps. >

I mis-read that as 'flying pants'.