Two user experience improvements amidst a busy January

It's been a hellishly busy month, what with the end of year return and the R&D tax credit claim. In the meantime, we'll also been making some adjustments to the way site works right now.

The two changes you'll notice immediately are on the listings and news pages.

A better listings grid

We had a number of users who were unhappy with the width of the TV listings grid being reduced by having ads to the right of it. So we've decided to pull the ads and give the space over to the listings.

We've also taken out some of the detail that was in each box. We've just kept the title of the programme so that it's much clearer to see immediately what's on, without a whole bunch of additional detail.

The key goal was to make the grid more readable. I think, with these initiatives, we've managed it.


Story tags

This is quite a basic function but we've now deployed 'tagging' in our stories, which allows us to have a sub-menu on the news page with the most popular tags, as well as a box with related stories.

This is all part of our recent drive to make the user experience better.

Let us know your thoughts and please don't sit on your ideas for improving the service: shout.

Lots more channels!

Image via Wikipedia

A brief update.

We've just added a ton of additional channels to the site. We've now got info for programmes for the most popular channels from Freeview, FreeSat, Virgin and Sky.

That means we'll have a much more detailed listings grid, a broader range of TV Picks of the Day, and even better recommendations - just for our beta testers right now.

Have a look!

...and if there are any channels you feel we absolutely must cover, please head over to our feedback page and let us know.

Downgrading IE6 browser support

Image via Wikipedia

This morning, while taking a look at our product backlog, we came to the realisation that many 'defects' relate specifically to Internet Explorer 6.0. Fixing those defects has a cost. Not fixing them also has a cost. It's fairly easy to calculate the cost of the former but the latter can only be a finger-in-the-air estimate based on what percentage of users are using IE6 when visiting the site, as well as related metrics such as the rate of growth of those users as a proportion of overall users, the 'loyalty' of the visitors and so on.

Just over 50% of our visits are from Internet Explorer users. Of those, 65% are on IE8 and only 10% on IE6. So only 5% of our visits are with IE6 browsers. It's also evident that month on month, the proportion of IE6 visits is shrinking, albeit only very slightly. What we have seen, however, is that IE7 is fast being replaced, most likely with IE8.

So we've made a decision with regards to the IE6-related 'defects'. While we won't be deleting them from the backlog, we've given them the lowest priority rating. The cost of fixing experience issues related to one browser does not stack up against the opportunity of improving the experience for people using all other browsers. That means we're unlikely ever to develop fixes for these problems but we're acknowledging that they exist.

If you are an IE6 user, please upgrade to a better, faster, more secure browser. Your browser was released in 2001, when the Internet was still a toddler. It's now a teenager and needs a new set of clothes. You can still choose Internet Explorer (if you must) but get a size 8.0: you'll find it fits better. Or try Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera. Your experience of the Internet will be much improved.

Related articles by Zemanta

• YouTube to Drop Support For IE6 Starting Next Month (mashable.com)
• Google Docs will reduce support for Microsoft's IE6 browser (guardian.co.uk)
• Microsoft Says Good Riddance To IE6, Sends Flowers To Its Funeral (thenextweb.com)

Getting social! TV Pixie's Facebook Page and YouTube Channel

There's lots of stuff going on under the bonnet right now. More about that in due course. In the meantime, a couple of things that are very visible and plain to see.

First, we have a brand spanking new Facebook Page. Head over and become a fan! This is in addition - and has a lot of different material to what you'll find from following TV Pixie on Twitter. So, for example, we have some stills from the BAFTA Awards in our photos.

We also took advantage of the BAFTA Awards on Sunday night to launch a new YouTube channel. Check it out and subscribe! We've got a few clips up right now about the BAFTA Awards like this one of Colin Firth:



More news soon...

TV Pixie welcomes Sian Meades to the new blog pages

It's been a little quiet around these parts. The reason for that is simple. There's been a lot going on.

At the end of last week we went live with the TV News section, bringing you stories about what's coming up and reviews of what's just been on. And some other exciting stuff from time to time.

And so it is my pleasure to announce that splendid blogger Sian Meades is starting to write for TV Pixie from tonight. She'll be reviewing Glee as her first piece. To be honest, if I can't persuade someone who lives to write and is as excited about the show as she is, I might as well give up all hope now.

We'll be posting links to some of the stories on Twitter or you can subscribe by RSS. Better yet, just drop by the TV News section.

TV Pixie is live!

So this is it, the site is live.

This is just the beginning, version 0.0.1, if you like. For now, it's a handy TV listings guide with some picks of the day.

We don't think it's an amazing site yet. We had to start somewhere and we thought 'hey, this is already useful' so we went ahead and put it out there.

There's some great, innovative stuff coming up. We hope people will say 'Wow!' That's in the works right now.

In the meantime, please share any ideas, comments, criticism with us, via the feedback forum.

Many thanks!