BBC Music Magazine

[Peter J. King]

My first impressions of the BBC Music Magazine site aren't good, I'm afraid. Having registered, I logged on, and tried to go to my account details so that I could change my password to something more memorable; my account page didn't exist (still doesn't in fact). I'd just voted at the Awards 2010 page (before I'd registered on the site), so thought I'd take another look; following the "Competitions" link, I found -- nothing... no competitions at all. So I came here; I was going to comment on the Awards competition - but I wasn't allowed to; I needed to log in again, despite having logged in to the Magazine site.

I decided to try logging out and logging in again. Fine - except that my account page still didn't exist, and when I came here I still had to log in again, with the same details, before I could post. And navigation back to the main Magazine site seems to have been made deliberately obscure (for those who haven't puzzled it out: there's no obvious link -- you have to click on the logo at the top left).

Poor design and coding, it would seem. I hope that my experience improves as I use the site.

[later]

The download button on the free-download page says "click here to download", when what it means is "left-click here for the track to play; right-click here and choose 'save target' if you want to download the track". Too much to put on the button itself, but underneath, perhaps?

[armandine2]

I know what you mean...you could look at it as arriving too early for a party, or too late?

[Peter J. King]

Too something, that's for sure. I still don't have an Account page, and it's not a great browsing experience to have something like this at the top of every page:

[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /common.php on line 218: Undefined variable: phpbb_seo

[fen bass]

Yes, quite a lot of log ins to do anything.
More like arriving aat a party and discovering that your invitation was a mistake....

FB

[Rebecca Franks]

Dear Peter,

I'm sorry to hear you've been having problems with your account page on the site. If you'd like to drop our help desk a line at helpdesk@bbcmusicmagazine.com they should be able to solve the problem for you.

Our Online team is currently taking a look at why the error message has appeared at the top of the website.

All best wishes,

Rebecca

[massenetman]

Glad to see the phpBB error message has gone!

It would be nice if all the parts of the website talked to each other!
I arrive and log in, or am sometimes greeted with "Welcome MM"

If i want the download, log-in again.
If I want to say something controversial, log in again.
Hmmm.

MM

[gordee]

I just registered and changed my password without any problems so I guess that issue is fixed. There is a clue in those error messages as to why you have to login again. This forum is an "off the shelf" forum call PHPBB (BB = Bulletin Board). Building a forum is a pretty complex business so many people opt for a ready made one and run it alongside their main site. Lets hope they find a way to link the two sides so we don't have to login every time we want to come over and share our thoughts. Also I can only assume that the nav bar at the top wasn't there originally?

And by the way - technically you have to download the song just to hear it (in the same way as you download a webpage just to look at it) - but I get your point. As a web developer myself I understand both the technical challenges involved in a site like this but I always put user experience at the top of the list of importance.

I'm sure things will improve

[fen bass]

Still multiple log ins -one to download, another to post comments.
Do I need to log in every time I breathe?
Best wishes,

FB