Kathryn Pierce
INF 385E
10.12.06
Design Critique Paper - craigslist.org
Introduction
The overarching theme of online classified ad giant, craigslist, is community. The idea is to connect the user to the community in a simple and human way. According to the site, the mission involves "being a collection of communities with a similar spirit, not a single, monolithic entity" (www.craigslist.org/about/mission.and.history.html). To this end, the main page has been designed to appear loosely structured, with as much information as possible in the small space. The targeted user is an average guy or gal looking for a site they can trust. This gives the impression of creating a space for the users that is not dictated by commercial interests and advertisements. The sense of community is established by empowering the users as "they let users have the run of the place" (Weiss, 2006). The site claims over 5 million page view a month, making it one of the most highly trafficked site on the Web. The public seems to respond to the simple and honest approach to design. Redesigning the site will maximize this community metaphor as opposed to diminishing it through slick architecture. The goal is to continue to keep the space clean and simple.
1. Community
When logging in to craigslist.org, one is immediately directed to the San Francisco site. To make the transition to finding the appropriate destination city a bit clearer, the links for navigation to a geographically specific site have been moved to the center top part of the page, under the label "Find your Community." To reduce the number of links, users are encouraged to choose from two menus, either within the United States or International. From this they choose their state or country of choice. This decreases the redundancy of listing cities as well as states and countries. This also lessens the amount of clutter by eliminating a column of links. By moving a couple of links to the bottom of the page and providing the label "Stay in touch with the S.F. community," the theme of community continues throughout the page. These links are the "progressive directory", which links users to San Francisco community items of interest, and the "subscription" to the RSS feed.
2. Color
To maintain a sense of simplicity while creating a more visually stimulating main page, color was added to some of the text, but in controlled ways. The color green has been applied to those labels indicating community and geographic location. Purple is indicative of area where the user can learn more about the craigslist site and community. To visually orient the user, "san francisco bay area" has been changed to red to stand out from the remainder of the page. While most of the page is made up of links, the bulk of the words are in blue, as this is the established norm for the Web.
3. Labels
Labeling presents an image of what the site is all about as well as the organization and structure behind the architecture. To have a successful, user-friendly main page, one should aim for consistency, as "consistency means predictability, and systems that are predictable are simply easier to learn" (Rosenfeld and Morville, 2002, p. 93). While craigslist is predominantly comprised of text labels, there is a lack of consistency. Particularly within the geographic listings, changes have been made to reflect uniformity of expression, particularly with regard to U.S. states that include North or South. To further this same notion, international location names were expanded (such as Great Britain and Czech Republic). This is particularly important as craigslist continues to expand to an international audience, for whom a language barrier might increase the need for clear recognizable standards in location names.
A few labels have been removed in sections where links were redundant. One example is the possibility of reducing the number of links under for sale by combining sporting and tickets. "Tickets" alone can link you to information regarding sport event tickets for sale. Within each category, links are organized with like items. For instance, "cars and trucks" and "boats" are listed next to each other. Further organization could allow for combining of categories to decrease clutter based on content within these links.
4. Text and Layout
As the primary goal of this redesign is clarity, the text font has been changed to Arial, since this typeface appears as simple and clean characters. While research indicates that "serif typefaces may be more readable in long passages of text," (Smart, et al., 2000, p. 595), the main page of craigslist is not designed for reading as much as scanning. The text should be broken into easily visible chunks. This is accomplished by determining table frame sizes and increasing the white space, as "white space helps structure information into meaningful chunks" (Smart, et al, 2000, p. 595). The purpose of craigslist is to provide one site where links to a large variety of information can be found on one page. This is most successful if the distinctions between groups or chunks of information is even more apparent. Each category is clearly labeled with enough space between the chunks to allow the page to feel less cluttered.
5. Images
The pure text-based nature of craigslist can be offset by small images, perhaps linking the user back to their particular community of interest. In the case of the main page, re-enforcing the image of San Francisco will provide a bit of geographical context and lead the user to recognize their location within the web site as analogous to a geographical location. The image also serves as a small departure from the text laden page without overpowering the simple structure of the site. The images need not be large, glossy, moving images to provide visual stimulation.
Conclusion
The fundamental strength of craigslist.org is its ability to inspire trust and comfort in the user. This keeps the user engaged and empowered. To drastically change the main page by providing a highly architected site would risk upsetting this delicate balance between clutter and usability that has made craigslist popular with its target audience. Slight changes to increase the clarity can allow for greater ease of use, but it is necessary to understand the desire of the user to be greeted by a website of the common man, which the loose architecture represents.
References
http://www.craigslist.org
http://www.craigslist.org/about/mission.and.history.html
Rosenfeld, L. and Morville, P. (2002). Information Architecture for the
World Wide Web (2nd ed). Cambridge; Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.
Smart, K. L., Rice, J. C., & Wood, L. E. (2000). Meeting the Needs of Users: Towards a Semiotic of the Web. IEEE Technology and Teamwork, 593- 605.
Weiss, Aaron. (2006). The Last Word: The Ugly Web: Where Form Follows Way Behind Function. netWorker, p. 40-ff.