How Latinos Read the News - Website Design
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A long time ago I wanted to write once again about website design for Latino appeal (or why not for everybody’s better appeal). Before expanding on the design part I want to talk about a little bit on Latinos reading habits and background. As you know many Latin American schools do not encourage reading as much as in the US. (different school system). That being said a ton of type, a huge long paragraph and little type are not attractive or eye catching for someone who’s not used to deal with that particualr editorial style. A dense newspaper main page, lots of little titles are becoming a thing of the past. Spanish language newspapers are evolving and so their websites too. Friendlier, easy going, easier to read editorial style is as important as content.

This topic idea started when I was asking myself why news sites were so boring to look at, uninteresting and why many lacked of a more creative layout for a better reading experience. Since I do not “unlink” of my Spanish heritage which I love, and on the contrary I keep myself close connected to, I try to read and look for interesting Spanish language news sites when I can. On one of this connections I happened to come across “20minutos.es” who’s site design and content layout not only surprised me but kept me interested until now. This is were I mostly get my news from, but let’s talk about design…

Here are some features that I like and why I think they work so well:
1. Panoramic images: this short but wider picture format is much more interesting to look at because you can see the surroundings besides the main focal point.
2. Upper keywords: In the top of site (third line after logo) there usually are 5 to 7 words that resume the days main events. (if you happen not to have time, you can read only this few words and have an idea on whats’s going on).
3. “Las mejores 24 fotos del día”: A day has 24 hours and so the amount of best images of the day. Interesting title. Makes me want to check out the images.
4. Type sizes: Not only the main news category of the day get the biggest type size permitted in their design layout, but you can get a big title as well in other categories like sports or entertainment.
5. Images amount per title: to me a picture says a thousand words. How many more words could I get from 3 images together or more?
6. Short videos: in this YouTube days, video is attractive to watch even for those who don’t have much time or don’t like it. No Media Player install or similiar applicaitons needed. Video watch, hassle free. Just click on the button.
7. Advertising: Ads are integrated in the page design. Isnt’ that great? it even makes me want to check them out. No more flashy, unpleseant ads you don’t want to see. No more eye-sore!

I think this design formula could work for many important news sites out here in the US and this could create a connection with new Hispanic or non-Hipanic readers who long for a better reading experience.