Over at IllNation, IA Steve Hunt picks up on the BBC homepage design and further investigates how it relates to the adaptive design ideas I've been kicking around. I had the pleasure of meeting Steve when he worked on the homepage team (I mainly remember making the case that the link to the BBCi Music site should be 'above the fold', so hardly as full of "knowledge and expression of ideas" as Steve remembers! But thanks ...) and I'll return the compliments. His work at the BBC exhibited all the attention to detail and ability to see a bigger picture that he's now demonstrating on his fine IllNation blog. I'm enjoying the read ...
Steve details how the homepage works adaptively - in my presentation, I did place it closer to the personalisation end of a 'continuum of adaption' (notes viewable in the .ppt), but in no way meant that it wasn't as subtly clever a piece of work that Steve and others had achieved. He's right to pick out how it actually quite different to 'conscious' personalisation. It's very smart indeed, and in its emphasis on behaviour, a landmark piece of work. As Steve says:
"Adaptation should be more organic than (simple personalisation). It needs to learn the behavior of it's audience. By all means, indicate the learning process by offering feedback to it's user, but I really believe that the adaptation should be gentle by design"
Quite so.
