Today the BBC have announced a new beta version of their homepage which I think looks excellent, that might of course be because it bears a striking resemblance to the Metro UI. Check out the new homepage (I’m not sure if its accessible outside of the UK).

In fact I’d go as far to say that it would only require the Segoe UI font to be easily mistaken for a Metro inspired design. The new design has very little chrome, instead letting images and text make up the formatting and design of the site, exactly like the Metro UI. Also the use of single block colours which allows news and sport to be easily differentiated is a very Metro like design. Equally the use of icons, such as the weather ones, look like they could have come straight from a new Microsoft product. Another aspect of the new design is that users can swipe to the left and right along the “carrousel” to view more content, this seems very like the pivot controls in Metro apps.

The overall design of the site is very different from anything the BBC has sported before on its homepage but it does follow a similar design from other in-beta pages from the BBC, such as its new radio page. I think the design is very interesting and I am looking forward to using on a permanent basis, it’s already my homepage.

What do you think of the new homepage design? How Metro like do you think it is?