Usability comparison between Rosetta Stone and BBC Languages pages on BBC website. Elements compared and analyzed: Content, content organization, information architecture, navigational ease. Written by a librarian (a 2004 graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and former college English writing teacher.

1. Comparison: Rosetta Stone & BBC’s Languages pages on BBC website
Gwen Williams
seealso@me.com
September 11, 2007
Content:
The content available on BBC Languages differs from Rosetta Stone in a
fundamental way, that is, BBC has geared their website toward the
tourist interested in visiting western Europe. As such, the content
learned from BBC could assist the tourist in learning catch phrases that
may be of use on a brief vacation in a French-, Spanish-, German-, or
Italian-speaking country. BBC Languages suggests they offer other
online resources for languages such as Chinese and Portuguese, but
they do not. I would note BBC Languages specifically targets UK
audiences, evident by the plethora of UK tutors and language courses
linked throughout the site—links that are obviously not useful to
persons living outside of the UK. Rosetta Stone, on the other hand,
seeks to provide content that would ground the learner in learning
fundamentals of a second language, which could, of course, assist the
tourist, but even more, could lead beyond tourist talk toward
establishing fluency with a new language.
Content organization:
The way the content providers organize content differs greatly. BBC
orders content around stock tourist situations and appropriate phrases
for such situations: some nouns, articles, and verbs are thus introduced
to the learner, albeit without much explanation as to the logical
structures governing gender, singular or plural, formal or informal, and
verb conjugation. In other words, BBC organizes content in such a way
that promotes rote memorization of useful phrases for tourists. In
contrast, Rosetta Stone orders lesson content around grammatical
precepts, in a progressive order (that is flexible enough for the learner
to bypass various lessons should he/she so desire).

2. Information architecture:
Rosetta Stone is clearly the superior resource with respect to providing
an information architecture consistent with users’ mental models of
learning a language and consistent with users’ mental models of online
learning modules. With respect to the former, Rosetta Stone’s
information architecture reflects that there is a progression for the
learner of a language that moves from basic fundamentals and
grammatical precepts to more complicated uses of language, or
fluency. Rosetta Stone also reflects the understanding that hearing,
reading, visual aids, basic writing, and speaking are all components of
learning a language and that the signifier should be linked with the
signified wherever possible, which Rosetta Stone achieves throughout
its module by overlaying the image (le garçon) with the word (le
garçon). With respect to design consistent with users’ mental models of
online learning modules, Rosetta Stone provides a simple and
uncluttered interface and an individual account mechanism, and
integrates a variety of media corresponding to a variety of learning
styles.
On the other hand, the information architecture of BBC Languages
lacks consistency with users’ mental models of learning a language
(mainly the organizing principle geared toward the tourist) and lacks
consistency with users’ mental models of online learning modules. For
instance, the user is never entirely within the BBC Languages module
as such, he/she is merely presented with a series of programmed
presentations structured around tourist situations in pop-up windows,
evident by the fact that the “home” button always visible refers to the
BBC domain name home, not the BBC Languages home. Always at the
ready for the user of BBC Languages is a mass of links to other pages in
the BBC Languages subdirectory, other BBC subdirectories, or non-BBC
websites: while potentially useful pointers to other resources (most
especially for persons living in the UK), overall this hyper hyper-linking
structure does not a learning resource module make—if it did, then
search engine display results would constitute a learning resource
module and even more so in that search engine results are displayed on
the fly with the most current information available, not embedded at
some point in the past (four hours ago, three months ago, two years
ago?) within web pages. BBC Languages certainly displays consistency

3. with respect to many users’ mental models of poor and cluttered
website design built by a vanguard from the print world slow to
understand the current technological milieu. That is, the BBC
Languages portion of their website suffers the same malady that BBC’s
website in the main does: it’s a mess based on outdated, cumbersome
conceptions of electronic media exchange.
Navigation:
BBC Languages differs greatly from Rosetta Stone with respect to ease
of navigation. Whereas Rosetta Stone minimizes the options available
for the user to navigate (thus, marking the navigation possibilities clearly
for the user), BBC maximizes the number of links away from the
content within BBC Languages proper toward the content of BBC’s
main business as creator and supplier of news in various formats and in
various languages. This choice by BBC certainly makes sense—BBC is
not, after all, in the business of teaching people new languages—
however, the user attempting to navigate through the links BBC
provides could easily become waylaid by the number of pop-up
windows, idiosyncratic use of fonts/colors/automated navigating
devices, and absence of sufficient breadcrumbs, to name a few poor
design decisions by the BBC. In short, whereas the navigation through
the self-contained Rosetta Stone is consistent, clear, and rational, the
navigation through BBC Languages is confusing, difficult and tedious,
and could cause many users to simply abandon the program and
google for a different online free language learning course—of which
there appears to be an abundance of such sites for specific languages
and for tourists wishing to get something for free. Ironically, the
generation of users—Gen X and Y—most able to navigate such a layout
with ease is perhaps the generation of users most likely to abandon
such a site because of its outdated and cumbersome approach to
building multimedia learning resources; and the generation of users
who would perhaps be most interested in the content of this resource—
the baby boomer and pre-baby boomer tourist classes—as a broad
group tends to lack fundamental information literacy skills necessary to
navigate seamlessly through the link-it-and-all-will-be-well BBC design.
Even for the ideal user of this resource, I wonder if mastering the
content (learning a few stock tourist phrases) would be worth the
navigational bother.

4. Sum:
BBC Languages hardly compares with Rosetta Stone’s product: they
were built for different reasons and are going after different market
segments. Even though BCL certainly serves the tourist wishing to learn
a few key phrases to unleash during his/her trip abroad, I would not
recommend BCL link to the BBC Languages website because of the
organizational principles used in constructing it, principles that led to
the questionable quality of its information architecture and navigational
features. In short, there are major usability issues with the BBC
Languages website.