El Confidencial Homepage Redesign
For El Confidencial's 25th anniversary, we rebuilt the homepage from scratch alongside a full rebrand. Search and social were sending us fewer readers, so the homepage had to earn direct visits. I was one of about six designers on the team, and early on I proposed building the page from a small set of modular templates instead of bespoke layouts. That system is what the new page runs on.
- Role
- Product designer
- Client
- El Confidencial
- Focus
- Reader experience
- Year
- 2025–2026
First full week after launch (17 to 23 June 2026) against the week before. Early signals, not lasting proof.
+0%
Engagement time per page
Time on page rose 7% and bounce edged down.
-0%
Recirculation (clicks from the homepage into articles)
Desktop headline clicks fell 19%; mobile rose 6%.
-0.0%
Daily ad revenue
On 23% fewer impressions. CPM, the price per thousand ad views, rose 30% and viewability rose 3.4 points.
Why a redesign?
Three pressures pushed us into it, and the anniversary set the deadline.
External pressure
- Google Discover started favoring creators over news outlets, cutting a major traffic source.
- AI search gave readers fewer reasons to click through, so direct visits mattered more.
Business goals
- We were the only newspaper in our sector without a responsive homepage.
- New ad formats needed a wider, 1200px layout.
Editorial goals
- Organize by topic instead of by section, as the NYT and Washington Post do.
- Give video and photography room, and cut the endless scroll.
Balancing competing needs
The newsroom, SEO, subscriptions, advertising and marketing all wanted space on the same page, and the reader still had to come first.
Product design
A modern, coherent experience
Key needs
- A fully responsive, multi-device experience
- Greater prominence for photography
- Expanded support for video, particularly vertical
- A design that holds up next to other major news sites
Research
Template performance data
Click and engagement data for every homepage template, showing what worked and what got buried.
Competitive benchmark
Our benchmark board comparing how newspapers worldwide handle subscriptions, newsletters, opinion, live feeds and video.
User interviews
Sessions where readers gave feedback on the new homepage.
Survey results
Quantitative feedback on hierarchy, video, and the reading experience (survey items blurred to protect confidentiality).
Insights
Topics beat sections
Readers think in topics, which confirmed the core idea of the redesign.
Bylines drive subscriptions
Columnists are the main reason readers subscribe, so opinion got a fixed spot near the top.
Position sets the hierarchy
Readers judge importance by where a story sits, not by the size of its photo.
The personalization paradox
Readers said they didn't want personalization. The one personalized module got by far the most clicks.
Less appetite for video
Vertical, TikTok-style clips were rejected almost unanimously. Only produced explainers worked.
Small gray text drew complaints
Our audience skews older, and the light gray standfirsts (entradillas) and tiny label pills (píldoras) were hard to read.
From sections to topics
Sections are mostly a leftover from print. People follow topics and stories, so we organized the page around them.
Judges see Sánchez entrenched if he is charged
Cracks in the PSOE: the drift challenging Sánchez
Leire's cleaning contracts span 12 PSOE town halls
The deal extending Almaraz to 2030 defies the government
€1.447B in revenue from Valencia's F1 plan
Russell and Hamilton chase an upset at Montmeló
Brazil disappoints on debut; Vini saves Ancelotti
Oyarzabal in the Golden Boot race, behind Mbappé and Kane
A modular template system
Early on I proposed building the page from a small set of templates instead of bespoke layouts. Each one sets the article's orientation, image ratio and heading style on a shared grid. The constraint was keeping the set small enough to stay consistent, yet flexible enough for any story.
Opening template
Banner
Topic and issue architecture
After the day's lead comes a run of issues, each a lead story with its context, then the main sections. Secondary sections fill in automatically. Issues aren't tied to sections, so a big story can rise to the top and drop back later.
Top to bottom
New homepage, new branding
The redesign launched alongside a full rebrand by an external consultancy: a new logo, color system and custom typeface.
The redesigned home page
What changed, region by region
- 1
Fully responsive 1200px layout
A wider layout gives each block more room and makes space for the new ad formats.
- 2
Redesigned header
A cleaner header adds a dedicated submenu for newsletters, podcasts and services.
- 3
Consolidated sections
Sections were renamed and consolidated, cutting sub-brands and clarifying the hierarchy.
- 4
Opinion near the top
Opinion has a fixed spot in the first scroll, led by the paper's best-known columnists.
- 5
Topic-based architecture
Stories are grouped into issues by topic, so each story stays in one place.
- 6
Context in right-hand column
Livestreams, video and infographics add context alongside the main story.
- 7
Room for widgets and data visualizations
Live widgets and data visualizations, like World Cup results, get the full width.
- 8
Vertical templates for vertical video
Vertical pieces work both on social media and on the homepage.
- 9
Full-width blocks for multimedia
Full-width blocks scale to the story, giving video and interactive pieces room.
Results
First full week after launch (17 to 23 June 2026) against the week before. In interviews, readers found the new page clearer and easier to read. The numbers were mixed. Both weeks fell around the start of the 2026 World Cup, which moves news traffic on its own, so these are early signals.
Recirculation dropped
The calmer page sends fewer readers on to articles: recirculation fell 12%, with headline clicks down 19% on desktop and up 6% on mobile. It is the main cost of the new design.
Revenue held
Ad impressions fell 23%, but CPM rose 30%, so daily ad revenue stayed flat. Slow mobile ad loading at launch hurt the top banner, and it was the first thing we fixed.
An SEO risk
The new page carries far fewer articles, and many of those cut were SEO pieces. One week of data can't show what that does to Google traffic.