Craigslist Redesign
Craigslist is obviously one of the most popular marketplaces, but it is also criticized for its out-of-date design in interface design and feature functions. To solve all the problems and provide a good experience for users, a newly designed mobile Craigslist is created.
My Role
UI/UX Designer
Project
Case Study; Re-Design
Timeline
1 months (Fall 2022)
Tools Used
Figma; Illustrator
SENSE INTENT - BACKGROUND RESEARCH
What is Craigslist?
The marketplace original. Buy, sell, work, hire, rent, share, meet, learn, serve, fall in love, and/or save the world. Founded 1995. All the basics are on Craigslist: jobs, housing, furnishings, cars/trucks, goods, and services.
A search engine and a few other features were added at this time, but otherwise, the site was nothing more than its name implied – just a list of user-written adverts; no colors, no images, no logo.
When you open the site, you just see a grid list of categories to click through on an otherwise blank page. This iconic layout hasn’t changed much since the service first went onto the internet. Craigslist is entirely resistant to change.
How and why people use it?
KNOW CONTEXT - CRAIGSLIST APP
User Reviews
1.8 star rating based on 2073 customer reviews. Consumers are mostly dissatisfied.
“Like the website, the mobile app is extremely simple – no frills, bells or whistles.”
“The app’s overall design mimics the website as well, meaning it’s mostly just text and a clean interface.”
Information Architecture Diagram for Craigslist App
KNOW PEOPLE - TARGET AUDIENCE RESEARCH
Interview with Craigslist Mobile App users
User Painpoints
Undesigned feature of Craigslist has made the product hard to use for both buyers and sellers in navigating deal processing, and communication.
User Persona
NAME John
AGE 23 years old
AESTHETIC Trendy
ACCEPTION Mobile App
HABIT Go straight
Background
“I want to sell my furnitures since I’m graduating and moving out from the city.”
Motivation
“It is a waste if I just throw everything away, so I want to sell them in a very fair price to someone near me that could do self pick up, so don’t need to package and deliver those big pieces.”
Painpoint
“I am a new user to Craigslist and never use it before.”
Mental Model
“I hope to have a smooth and convinient selling process on the platform, and having wide range of people around me and who ask for these type of needs to view my post. I know Craigslist is one of the most prevalent online market place, but I am an international student and haven’t done furniture selling before in the city.”
Customer Journey Map
FRAME INSIGHTS - EXSISTING PROBLEM SOLVING
A redesigned Craiglist that has a clean and modern interface, simply it to intuitive navigation, in meanwhile adding additional interface to improve communication and user personalization.
FRAME SOLUTIONS
Wireframing: Implement New features
Having login as the first step of using the App
A home page providing post based on your interests/change the long press feature
An in-App message to reach to buyer/seller quickly
Old features Iterations
REALIZED OFFERING
Craigslist redesign: A contemporary version
The redesigned version retains the purple color scheme while introducing a more stylish serif font.
It includes a newly added login and sign-up page and features for user personalization based on interests and locations, along with options for buying and selling items.
Home Page & Post Details
Prioritized posts and items aligned with personalized user interests, enabling direct communication between buyers and sellers: Users can easily ask questions by commenting directly under posts.
Publish a Post
Selecting a specific intention for a post provides users with clear guidelines on the required information. Categorizing posts also aids other users searching for relevant content.
Category Redesign & Add Message section
Including more images, distinguishing between your purchases and sales, and streamlining online communication for convenience and direct interaction.
TAKEAWAYS
Learned to deconstruct existing product information, map it to user flows, and analyze user experiences across different parts of the product.
Gained experience in problem analysis through qualitative research, and extracting pain points from user feedback.
Solutions are co-designed with our users, in which design decisions are always driven by their needs.
With more time, I would conduct additional user testing on the redesigned version to refine and iterate further.
