We've made a couple of tweaks to the homepage today.

We've slightly enlarged the top right 'Find a Programme' panel, in order to present the link to all current Radio 4 programmes more clearly. The top picture promotion area has therefore been slightly reduced and, in order to preserve the image shape, we've moved the text to the bottom.

Here are some other changes which should go live shortly, in response to audience feedback:

• Clearer links from programme homepages to the pages about their recent editions.
• A new weekly schedule grid view, which horizontally aligns programmes by time.
• On the daily schedule page, the greyed-out calendar links from previous/next months will become clickable.

And looking a little further ahead:

• We'll start to move archive audio to the new site and will review the ways users get to this content. (In the meantime, remember that you can still access these archives via the links on the right hand side or in the navigation bar on programme pages.)
• Work has started to redevelop some of our programme microsites (eg The Archers, In Our Time) and add some new features.

Thanks again for your constructive feedback so far.

Leigh's previous posts on this topic:

• Designing the new web site, 9 March 2009.
• More on the new R4 web site, 19 March 2009.
• The countdown has begun, 30 March 2009.
• The new web site: one week on, 6 April 2009.
• Some changes to the new site - and a favour! 16 April 2009.

A couple of days ago in a comment here on the blog @ooergosh asked a question about the new 'week-at-a-view' schedule on the Radio 4 web site. He or she said:

Glad you're listening to about 1% of feedback. Now how about tackling the rest? For example I have just noticed that the schedule for the full week doesn't observe any horizontal logic: a programme at 11.30 a.m. on Saturday appears at a lower visual level than a programme at 2 p.m. on Friday. This makes it horribly difficult to find things at a glance. Whilst the site generally has far too much white space, a little more on the full week's schedule page would make it much easier to read and also give a feeling on the length of the programmes.

Good question, I thought. So, I emailed the Radio 4 interactive team and asked them: "why doesn't the schedule line up horizontally" and a day later, Ant Smith, the man responsible for ongoing maintenance of the Radio 4 site now that it's live, sent me this picture: a mock-up of a new schedule that lines up horizontally! Ant wants me to tell you that this is a very early mock-up of a new schedule page and it might never make it into service but, still, it's exciting to see this kind of progress isn't it?

Ant also alerts me to this list of routine changes to the site, all of which should be live by now and all of which are direct responses to user feedback here on the blog:

• Main Promo title now acts as a link


• Text resizing on homepage no longer obscures any content


• Contact us now allows 1000 characters (up from 255)


• Genre panel lists genres in alphabetical order

Here's a fascinating post from one of BBC Audio & Music's software engineers, Yves Raimond, about the catalogue of programmes that underlies the new Radio 4 site (and all the other BBC sites, for that matter). This is pretty technical stuff - and you'll find plenty of words like 'ontology' and abbreviations like RDF/XML - but it's really worth reading because it's about the way the next generation of BBC sites will organise data better to make information easier to find and expose all sorts of interesting connections.

Here's Mark Friend, Controller, BBC Audio & Music Interactive, on the BBC Internet blog, explaining the decision to provide links to online shops selling Archers audio books. This is obviously a pretty controversial step for the BBC to take and Friend's careful to point out that:

The suggested suppliers have been assessed against published criteria which include purchasing security, data protection and customer support. These criteria are intended to give a simple and reliable way to find BBC products while not favouring any one retailer over others.

The BBC doesn't make any money from these links to retailers:

Buying media online can be confusing and daunting, particularly for those with concerns around security and legality. I believe the BBC has a public service role to play in helping people to find older content, and in guiding those least familiar with purchasing media online. Acting as a 'trusted guide' is something that we take very seriously.

Friend says that providing links to suppliers of historic Radio 4 content is analogous to the way BBC News online provides links to archive news stories and features. He's looking for feedback on this trial so click over to his post and leave a comment there if you have an opinion about it.

The same, of course, goes for our new blog design! The new design, which you'll notice is wider and a bit more like the rest of the Radio 4 web site, went live yesterday and a few snags have come to light - you'll notice that the features above the big banner at the top aren't behaving quite as they should, for instance. The tech team is working on this as I write. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think of the new look, though.

Thanks once again for your feedback. We've had a busy couple of weeks bedding down the new site and we're making some small changes to our homepage today, informed by your comments.

One of the main pieces of feedback has been the request for a page listing all currently available programmes, especially those which are available to "listen again". To address this, we've made the following changes:

1. We've added a link in the Find a Programme panel at the top of the homepage to a list of all programmes that are currently available on iPlayer and those scheduled in the next week. (We'll need to review the layout of this panel in due course).
2. The genre links in this panel now take you to similar lists (all programmes from the past week and the week to come), rather than just offering the last five and next five programmes.
3. We've added a link to all programmes currently available in iPlayer at the bottom of the Popular Programmes list.

We're planning further revisions in the weeks to come and I'll update you with changes as they're confirmed. I'll be grateful for your ongoing feedback as we develop the website.

On another note, I'm delighted that our World on the Move website has recently been nominated for two awards.

The Sony Radio Academy Awards are known as the Oscars of the UK radio industry and we've been shortlisted for the Multiplatform Radio Award.

And the Webbys claim to be the leading international awards honouring excellence on the Internet. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences selects the award winners but nominees are also eligible to win a Webby People's Voice Award.

If you enjoyed the World on the Move website, we'd be very pleased if you'd cast your vote. To do so, you'll need to register at the Webby Awards People's Voice web site. Voting closes on 30 April.

The full list of all nominees is available here.

Thank you for your comments. While we're pleased with much about the new site, we always expected to continue work after launch.

Firstly, I'm sorry that so many of you experienced technical problems over the weekend. There were publishing problems on Friday afternoon which affected the availability of radio programmes. We're aware of another problem on Sunday morning which affected our new programme pages for a short time. It isn't any consolation to know that these failures weren't confined to Radio 4. I share your frustration.

I'd also like to pick up a few of the main issues raised in your feedback.

Homepage design: We've had some positive comments about the homepage but I've also noted that some people don't like the top promotion area or our use of images. This homepage marks a departure from the old design and I appreciate that it isn't to everyone's taste. But this is also one of the more subjective areas of discussion and there isn't a consensus across the feedback we've received, so we're going to work with this for a while longer before drawing any firm conclusions.

Navigation: The majority of pages and navigational links tested well before launch but new issues arise when you launch a site and expose it to the real world. We're already considering changes that we could make to address some of the valid points raised. But we're going to let the site bed down a little more first, so that we can be sure to understand the impact of any changes that we might make across the range of Radio 4 content and other parts of the BBC that share this system.

Archive: I concede that navigating to the archive isn't something we've got right yet. At the moment, we're linking back to pages from our old site for archive content, with current content available on our new pages, but we will bring our archive audio content into the same system in the near future. (This is part of the plan to enable our archive content to be 'tagged' and found by subject). In the meantime, archive content can be found by following the 'archive' links in the navigation at the top of programme pages.

Programme information: We now have a page for every programme we broadcast and these pages have developed during the week since relaunch, as the teams around the BBC who supply content for the website have started to work with our new systems. It isn't yet perfect across the board but you should continue to see improvements.

News Headlines and Weather: In responding to feedback that the old homepage was too cluttered, we had to decide to remove some features which we knew users could access easily elsewhere. Many of our users go to the BBC News and Weather sites and this was a relatively unused feature of the old Radio 4 homepage, which is why we removed it.

We're still identifying and working through a list of snags which will iron out some of the smaller points raised. I am grateful to those of you who have taken the time to outline specific points constructively and ask for your patience as we make improvements in the weeks to come.

• The redesigned Radio 4 web site launched on 31 March 2009. Leigh's previous posts about the redesign are here (9 March), here (19 March) and here (30 March). Mark Damazer launched the site on 31 March.
  
• The BBC's web site design standards.
• Sophie Walpole explains the idea behind 'one page per programme' in a blog post written back in 2007.
• Follow @radio4blog on Twitter for regular updates from the Radio 4 blog.

Leigh Aspin, head of Radio 4 Interactive, has been reading your feedback here on the blog and he's preparing a follow-up post (his fourth on the topic) to address the main points in the next few days. In the meantime, here's my rough-and-ready analysis of the feedback so far (based on the comments left on the two most recent blog posts about the redesign up till about lunchtime today).

Although the redesign has been a huge enterprise for all involved - and the first redesign in six or seven years - a web site is never finished. So we still need your thoughts and opinions on the new site as it evolves and the blog will be our primary way of keeping you informed about new ideas and changes to the site.

• The cloud of keywords is by Wordle.net.

Many people contributed to today's launch of the redesigned Radio 4 web site, some over several years - not least Leigh Aspin and his Radio 4 interactive team and the many engineers from the various BBC technology departments who dreamt up and then built the fantastically useful catalogue of BBC programmes.

We'll try to acknowledge more of these people here as the new look beds in and as we get used to the new features. In the meantime, the slideshow shows the site's designers and 'client side developers' from BBC Audio & Music interactive - led by Suzy McKeever - and Leigh Aspin's team from Radio 4 Interactive, whose job it is to look after the site now that it's live.

• Jem Stone has put screenshots of all the Radio 4 homepages since 1997 (from the Wayback Machine) in a set at flickr.
• Twitter users are talking about the redesign.
• Follow @radio4blog on Twitter for more site updates.

The Radio 4 website was in need of an overhaul and today - after a lot of work and audience research - comes a new one. The disappearing site was rather cluttered and things were often difficult to find. Under the surface the edifice was kept together by increasingly frayed technology. So I hope you find the new one easier to use, that you use it more often and that you can find what you want more quickly.

There's one new feature in particular which I hope you will find rewarding - the topical subjects area on our new homepage. You can choose one of the individual subjects/topics listed - then click and you will be linked to current R4 material on that subject (Try Barack Obama or Recession). Similar links will appear on many of our new programme pages. At the moment we can't do that with as many subjects as we'd like - but we intend to build on what we have and add many more . Doubtless there will be some problems - but we will iron them out. But for the time being - enjoy it and I know that R4's interactive team would welcome constructive feedback.

• Follow Radio4blog on Twitter for Radio 4 news, site updates and interesting retweets.
• Some photographs from the morning of the big day.

This is a short post to let you know that we're almost ready to relaunch the Radio 4 website and so you can expect the change to take place on Tuesday morning. Please bear with us on the day as we bed down the new site. There are bound to be some issues and things to get used to. A site like this is a huge undertaking but we are confident it will be deliver a much improved service.

Thanks again for the useful feedback we've received so far on this blog, the message board and via email. Once you've had a chance to get used to the new site, please let us know what you think, so that we can build on this foundation and improve the service for you.

• Leigh's previous posts about the redesign are here (9 March) and here (19 March).
• The picture is 'COUNTDOWN' by holster, used under licence.

Steve Bowbrick, editor, says: when the new site launches tomorrow, take a minute to tell the world what you think. Twitter using the hash tag #radio4, take photos of where you are when you see the new site and share them with the same tag, write a blog post or record a response. Follow Radio4blog on Twitter and we'll keep you up to date.

We're now ready to reveal the new Radio 4 website design. These annotated screenshots take you through some example pages from the new site with an explanation of their main features. Let me give you some background to this work which is one of the most complex redesigns in the BBC portfolio.

The design takes the colours and shapes of Radio 4's brand toolkit as its starting point. Our team worked with this toolkit to create a design that adds depth and impact to our programme pages, without distracting from the content - white background space and a subtle emphasis of the information hierarchy help to present the programme information clearly. Agreeing a design route is usually the point at which all stakeholders want to have their say and this project followed that honourable tradition.

It was all the more interesting because this is the first time that the full Radio 4 brand toolkit has been incorporated within the main website design which was a big challenge. It is thanks to the flair and professionalism of our User Experience & Design team, working with our supportive colleagues in Marketing, that this result was achieved. You'll notice when we relaunch that different colours are emphasised within certain genres - red is picked out on our news programme pages, yellow for comedy, green for drama and readings.

Some of you will be familiar with the BBC's programmes website (bbc.co.uk/programmes). At relaunch, we're adopting these programme pages with some significant changes to template layout, design and some new features (as described on our sample pages). Not only will these pages provide a more consistent user-experience across Radio 4, they will in time enable us to create useful links between related content right across the BBC. (And there are other features and services that we'll be able to add in the months to come.) As we head towards launch, we're negotiating the challenge of making the specific demands of Radio 4 programmes work with this pan-BBC system - this is going well, on the whole, and we'll be grateful for your feedback to help us to fine-tune this at launch.

I'd also like to highlight the introduction of 'tagged' episodes, which will create a new way of navigating to programmes - by subject. At launch, you'll find 'tags' (keywords) on programme pages and a selection of topical tags on our homepage. Clicking on a tag will take you to a page which brings together all recent Radio 4 programmes related to that keyword (eg all programmes about Barack Obama or Climate Change or Asthma).

As we build up an archive of tagged programmes, our rich audio resource will become more accessible. In the audience research we undertook at the start of this project, lighter Radio 4 listeners in particular said that enabling them to "browse by subject" would be the most useful service we could provide to help them to find and enjoy more Radio 4 programmes. I'm eager for us to build towards this service from launch.

We're still just about on course to launch at the end of this month, barring any unforeseen problems, but have a lot of code-tweaking and editorial checking to undertake during the next week or so. I'll let you know when we're ready to make the switch. In the meantime, I'll look forward to reading your reactions to the screenshots.

• This is Leigh's second post on the redesign. The first is here.

Follow Radio4blog on Twitter for Radio 4 news, site updates and interesting retweets.

As Interactive Editor for Radio 4, I'm responsible for the content of our digital services. I'm joining the blog this week to tell you about a relaunch of the Radio 4 website scheduled for the end of this month.

This is something I've thought we should do for some time. The current site is about 7 years old - ancient in web terms. Its design and much of its supporting technology have become dated and won't be able to deliver all the great services that we want to bring you. The site has also become more crowded and consequently less easy to use as new services (podcasts, for example) have been bolted on.

Whenever an established website is relaunched, it is disruptive for its users. It's rather like a supermarket re- opening after a refit: it looks brighter and you assume people must have made changes for a good reason but it takes you a couple of visits to find all of your favourite items again. You need a good reason to justify that disruption.

And there will always be more that we could do to enhance programme sites, or new technologies just a few months away that we could wait for. Developing a website is a job that is never completed.

The most important reason for relaunching now is that some of our core services just aren't working as well as they should. For instance, you've understandably been frustrated when a technical problem has prevented you from listening online to your chosen programme. The current website's relatively old and patchwork technology is the cause of some of the problems we've experienced in recent months and applying sticking plaster will only work for so long.

While your feedback has been reasonably positive over the last few years, we've also picked up a trend (both from the emails you send and more formal audience research) that you're finding the site a little less easy to use and we've had quite a few comments about the site feeling "cluttered", especially our homepage. I recall one user's more extreme response to the question "what do you dislike about this website?". "Everything except the audio" he or she replied.

There are several advances in design and technology on bbc.co.uk that we can take advantage of. At relaunch, we'll be moving most of the site to a wider page template (compare the width of the Radio 4 homepage with the BBC homepage) and adopting a fresh design that will give our content more room to breathe. The site will be supported by improved technology that should provide a more robust audio service and will deliver more consistent navigation around the site. So there's a good match between these improvements, the issues your feedback raises and our own aspirations for the progress of the service.

This week we're analysing the results of our user- testing of the new site. I'm encouraged that initial reactions seem to be positive from regular and lighter users but we will doubtless be making some tweaks to the work we've done. I'll then give you a preview of the new page designs and features next week.

One last important point: this relaunch is a milestone in our redevelopment of Radio 4's web service but we don't intend to wait another 7 years before developing further. There will be more to do to improve the site and it will serve as the foundation for some exciting new features and programme sites that we hope to launch during the next year and beyond. I'll look forward to your comments once we've relaunched, which will help us to improve the service as we go forward.

• This is Leigh's first post about the redesign. Here is the second.