A thoughtful bloke by the name of Matt Jones has posted The Glass Wall, a BBCi Design Process Document that provides some fascinating insight into the 2002 redesign of the BBC homepage.

One of the aims of the 2002 homepage redesign was to inject a little more ‘soul’ into the page. This idea emerged from feedback about the 2001 homepage which was labelled functional but perhaps a little clinical in look and feel.

In order to do this we wanted to go beyond function and pursue the emotional, expressive, suggestive and engaging aspects of the user experience, possibly something beyond visual aesthetics and brand.

There are many reasons why people love a website apart from how it looks. We wanted to find out whether individuals like, love, hate or were indifferent to our homepage and why. Ultimately, we wanted to identify things to guide us in designing something to which people might say — “I love this homepage!”

This is a unique opportunity to get a peek behind a redisign process for a world-class site. Download the PDF before somebody in a suit gets nervous. [via Kuro5hin] | blackbeltjones.com: The Glass Wall