This paper presents user requirements and user interface design guidance for interactive television (iTV) news applications. In order to develop design guidance the following steps have been carried out: (1) User requirements analysis for iTV news applications using focus groups. (2) Heuristic usability evaluation of two existing iTV news applications based on ISO 9241 and ISO 14915. (3) Based on the results from the requirements analysis and the heuristic usability evaluation two iTV news application prototypes were developed. (4) These prototypes were evaluated by end users in a usability test. (5) Based on the previous steps general design guidance for iTV news applications has been developed in particular for media selection and media combination. The results presented serve the user-centered design and development of iTV news applications.