Easy on the eye, easy on the brain

Dom Phillips has just published an article for the FT.com showing that readership of tabloids in Brazil is soaring – despite the Internet -  at a time that most of the newspaper industry is bleeding.

I’m not going into the prejudices which come to my mind when I think of regular tabloid readers. But the article made me think about what makes some formats so successful.

Entertainment hungry, low attention span, uninterested in deep reflection.  I’m not describing tabloid readers, I’m talking about most of us Internet users. The way people read paper tabloids have a lot in common with the way we consume information on the web. In fact, tabloids need to change very little from print to online versions. Compare the paper version of The Sun with their website or even their iPhone app, for instance.

User-experience professionals have known this for a long time. Fat headlines, bite size text, picture rich, attention grabbing editorial style has been the norm and let’s admit, a reference of best practice (we scan – we don’t read, etc.)

All in the name of usability – or we are all closet tabloid fans!