Personalise your BBC online home page

Pay a visit to the BBC website at www.bbc.co.uk. At the top of the page are two buttons that can immediately be used to start customising the appearance of the site. Start by clicking the ‘Set your location’ link and then choose between displaying the UK or international version of the site. If the UK version is selected, it is then possible to enter a postcode or town name to help provide local data. Having chosen the relevant settings, click the Save button followed by Confirm.

To continue personalising the site, click the ‘Customise your homepage’ button at the top of the page. Tick the boxes next to each of the topics that should be displayed on the site, unticking any that you are not interested in. It is also possible to change the colour of the website by making a selection from the colour swatch at the bottom of the customisation panel. Alternatively, select the Rotate Colours option to change the appearance of the site on each visit. Click the Save button when finished.

Each of the site sections that were selected in the previous step will now be displayed on the main BBC home page. It is possible that these are not necessarily positioned in a preferable order but it is easy to change the layout of the various panels. Hold the mouse just above the title text of a panel and the cursor will change into a pair of crossing arrows. Using the left mouse button, drag and drop the panel to a new position on the page, releasing the button when the desired location has been reached. Repeat for other panels.

While it is likely that all of the information panels that have been added to the page are of interest, it is possible to minimise some or all of them to save space. To temporarily minimise panels that are not needed, click the down-pointing arrow icon immediately to the left of a panel’s title. This will shrink the box down to just its title bar. To restore a panel, click the arrow that has now turned into a right-pointing arrow.

Most panels can be customised to some degree. Those that can feature an Edit button in their upper right-hand corner. The options that are available vary from one panel to another but, for example, the Weather panel allows you to choose between displaying temperatures in Celsius or Fahrenheit. On the News panel, meanwhile, it is possible to choose which types of news story should be displayed. After making any changes, click the Save button.

Many of the panels, including News, Music, Entertainment and BBC iPlayer, display headlines or listings. A certain number of items are displayed by default, but this can be easily changed. To the right-hand side of most lists are two buttons, one featuring a ‘-’ sign and the other a ‘+’ sign. Click the ‘-’ button to display fewer items in a list, or ‘+’ to show more. Any settings that are put in place will be saved for the next visit.

There are also a number of options that can be used to make the BBC website easier to read. Click the Display Options link in the upper left-hand corner of the page and then click the Presets button. A number of pre-defined colour and font schemes will then be displayed. Browse through the list until a suitable one is found and then click the relevant Select button. Click the Confirm link and the new colour scheme will be activated for the site.

Alternatively, click the Display Options link followed by Customise to create a personalised look for the site. Use the options to the left of the page to choose how graphics, text and links should be displayed, using the Preview Window to the right to get an idea of how things will look. Click the Save button to apply the new settings. The options available here are particularly useful for anyone with sight problems, as it is possible to choose a high-contrast colour scheme and increase the size of fonts.

With so many customisation options available, it is possible to get a little carried away and change a few too many settings. If the number of changes that have been made mean that it would take too long to undo those that are no longer needed, the site can be quickly restored to its original state by clicking the ‘Reset homepage’ in the upper right-hand corner of the page. After confirming the action, any custom settings will be removed so you can start from scratch.

The BBC website can also be accessed from a variety of handheld devices, such as mobile phones and handheld PCs. When viewing the site on such a device, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Preferences link. There are a number of different mobile versions of the site available, some designed for those with larger screens and others designed for those working with slow connections. After deciding which version is most suitable, click the link labelled ‘Get this’ under the relevant heading.