Beijing 2008 website
August 8, 2008
For the next two weeks this website can expect to get among the highest traffic numbers on the planet. It’s the official website for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Competition schedules, results, video highlights will all be available here, as you’d expect from the online presence for a world-class sporting event (and this is the granddaddy of them all).
The challenge for a major sports website is to meet the demands for real-time information updates and multimedia platforms without breaking the bandwidth. The design must look dynamic and exciting, while accommodating a large amount of content in a limited (screen) space.
The front page of the Beijing 2008 site has a sidebar graphic (not a header graphic) in vibrant shades, moving from red and yellow (China’s national colours) through to green and blue. Blue is the feature colour for the right sidebar, with green and orange serving as highlights (headings, horizontal lines etc).
Move through the site, and you’ll notice that the sidebar graphic is quickly replaced with a header graphic, giving pages the horizontal space to feature specific information.
The available language versions are English, Chinese, French, Spanish and Arabic. The navigation for language options is displayed in the top right corner, in an orange menu which contrasts well against the blue background.
In addition to the sporting content, there is information for visitors to Beijing, including an e-Map with options to highlight Olympic venues, transport, amenities or city landmarks.
It’s customary for Olympic host cities to have a mascot or mascots. Beijing has five, which are collectively known as “Fuwa”. They represent five symbolic animals, as well as the colours of the five Olympic rings. I expected the Fuwa to feature more prominently on the site than they have. The front page displays just one Fuwa character at a time, next to a weather widget (it rotates through each character; every time you return to the front page a different one is displayed).
The site has its drawbacks. Links frequently open a new window or tab; if you’re exploring several pages in the site, the number of open windows/tabs can really mount up. The e-Map highlighting function worked erratically for me. But most frustrating was that I couldn’t play any of the videos on the site, apparently because I was viewing on a Mac.
However I like the site’s design overall. I think the main graphic is vibrant and captures a Chinese essence in the swirling cloudburst pattern. It can’t be easy achieving a design which is universal in theme but which is also a reflection of the host nation. Also, the information on competitions, schedules, venues and results is very easy to find.
What do you think? Does the website achieve everything that it sets out to, or which an Olympic website ought to?
Other resources: Essential Keystrokes has an article about Google getting ready for the Olympics. If you’ve written an article recently about the Olympics online, let me know and I’ll link to it here.
3 Responses to “Beijing 2008 website”
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I love that colorful swirly sidebar/header background! I don’t understand why the logo is so small though- seems it should be at least 50% larger.
Randa:
The logo is definitely a bit on the small side. It makes the type a little difficult to read, and it may take some visitors an extra second or two to realise they’ve come to the right website – who knows?
the logo is very vertical. making it any large would take up menu space. but it isn’t all that important either way