The BBC have launched a new look and feel for their news and sports sites. Have you noticed?

The site now reminds me (a bit) of a talk I heard last year at Internet World when one of the speakers (sadly can’t recall who) was describing that we’d be forgiven for thinking a Web 2.0 site should have these features;
1. Rounded text.
2. Large fonts.
3. Bright colours.
4. Silly name. (not applicable)
5. Founder blog. (well not founder but lots of blogs, rss feeds etc)

To me it looks and feels like the site has been dumbed down. On the (international as is my preference) home page level we were give many more choices before - especially more headlines for various sections and regions - now there is only one. The websites for further information are now hidden or controlled in a drop down field - rather than laid out besides the article so you don’t know about the range unless you click on the box. I rather liked the left hand text, but I guess most peoples screen sizes are mainly huge these days so the new resolution optimisation works well for most people.

We seem to have to use our mouse/click a lot more to get more on the site.

I am sure by next week, I’ll be used to it. Will you?