News Switcher

Aims

A handy solution for journalists to view different editions of the BBC News website

Our journalists have been grumbling for a long time about the difficulty of seeing the BBC News website's different editions - for different parts of the world. Now, the time when they exchanged proxy URLs at the coffee machine is over - thanks to the News Switcher.

The News Switcher, created by the News Labs team, is an easy-to-use tool that presents the News website's editions, for mobile, tablet, and desktop.

The International edition (eg not the UK one) is available through the News Switcher - and so are the U.S., Europe, and Asia ones, where the Beeb has a customised front page tailored to the local audiences.

It was extremely well-received by the newsroom:

Given the warm reception of certain features within the tool, the team decided to release an open-source sister project named the Device Switcher, which grants anyone the ability to view the appearance of websites in their mobile, tablet and desktop views.

Results

• This has helped journalists see BBC content the way audiences around the world are consuming it without having to install proxies every time they arrive at work.
• Our prototype has been built into the BBC’s CPS system, which produces the bulk of our online journalism.