The Adventures of Cindy Li

SXSW 2006: Design Eye for the List Guy

March 13 , 2006

Project is Craigslist

Keith Robinson, research and strategy
Paul Nixon-designer on the web team at apple
Branding and Identity
Cameron Moll: Mobile technology, Freelance designer
Ryan Sims: Interface and Layout (bignuke.com) (purevolume.com)
Andrei Herasimchuck: Usability and information architecture

Research and strategy:

We had to justify what we were doing we had to get out there and talk to the people for informed design decisions

Craigslist: Keith's view

• wise fool/educated assumptions
• first impressions
• if it ain't broke, what's there to fix?

A quick survey:

• People {heart} craigslist...
• Craigslist is "easy" yet "unprofessional"
• It's not perfect (but what is?)

A quick survey-BERT

Bi-polar emotional response (kind of). It wasn't scientific. Thanks to survey.com

1-on1 w/Sally, Dick and Jane

• interacting w/people interacting
• reinforces what we thought we knew
• helps to build empathy

Summarized findings:

• Search could be improved
• homepage could be organized better
• personalization would be sweet
• needs a more professional feel

Craigslist:the brand

• more of the unbrand
• more of promoting the content and getting out of the way

This is hard craigslist is...

it is so community oriented, driven by people who love it the identity should be to and it is.

NIXON, the research:

Craig's List vs craigslist

• Started reading any article online about it
• Researched craig about him pulling himself out of the list
• craigslist 1.0
• Craigslist 2.0

why not? uh... no. Geert taking photo.. will ad later

craigslist 3.0

Powering the fleet's black market since the cylon attack Geert took photo too

pushpin back

Feedback w/the team based on geography based symbolism lets keep this as simple as possible

the decision

• logo system so it is flexible
• the pushpin is a little cartoony
• a little fun
• just a traditional word mark
• then a visual mark (push pin)

Nike is controversial

They have just the word mark or the symbol. It has such a following Worked w/Ryan to work it into the page the traditional stuff application

One more thing....

Moll: Mobile technology how would people use it on a mobile device? How could they use it in a redesign? NOT mobile.craigslist.org but rather craigslist on a mobile device. "Mobile Web"? Something akin to the fragmented, haphazard, pre-standards desktop web... x43 If you think its fun designing for 5 browsers, then try 40 browsers on devices.

Methods

• Do nothing
• Take an existing site and try figuring out how it gets on mobile
• As long ask the markup is setup properly it should be fine
• Craigslist 32kb markup only
• If you downloaded each time you would pay a premium for the entire page on your device
• Strip images and styling
• Handheld style-sheets
• Method comparison
• Speed-complexity-value

Pyramid going up..

• 1.SSR
• 2. No Styling
• 3. style-sheets
• 4.Mobile Site

Miniaturize or mobilize?

• Miniaturize
• Repurpose the existing site

Primary use cases

• Choose area (city)
• Browse category
• Post a listing
• Search
• Event Calendar
• Forums

Use case hierarchy

• 1. Search Top element
• 2. Categories most frequented
• 3. Even calendar access to today, tomorrow
• 4. Choose area by zip code or city name assume SF/Bay Area default

We tried shortcutting the users

Robinson interjecting: Context and mobile of how people use the site Event calendar access? Should craigslist be sf default? For this case you already selected the city you want

Miniaturize or mobilize?

• Content-specific
• Context specific

Miniaturize or Mobilize?

• Ask Craig
• Interface and Layout

Embrace constraints.

Realign vs. Redesign No flash, xml.. ;)

Realign vs redesign

• Cameron's on a list apart
• page weight (32k)
• interface tools: as a designer, I usually tackle.. colors, fonts, icons.. a bag of things to use to make a good interface
• the tools consisted of color, and using type

Inspiration

• newsdesigner.com
• UXmag
• Super-hero Khoi Vinh
• the onion
• Homepage
• original
• realigned

28+4+2(image)=34k we can make things look good craigslist is #27 for used sites

justwatchthesky.com/vault/sxsw