Thanks, Craig

I have to give massive props to Frankfurt craigslist. More importantly, massive props to craigslist in general.

See, I tried a lot of websites that offered postings for sublets, apartments, hostels, and hotels in Frankfurt. A lot of websites. Almost all were a total pain to use… hideous websites with poor navigation, difficult searches and hardly ever enough information in the listings. Some of these websites didn’t provide the contact information since they wanted you to pay for it. Others just didn’t have any good listings. At one point I started thinking that I wouldn’t find a place to live… every place was occupied because of the World Cup.

Then my mom chanced upon Frankfurt’s craigslist. I didn’t even know that there were craigslist sites for cities outside the U.S. Craigslist is great; who can argue with free classifieds? After a few minutes of looking I found a place to stay. (A place that was actually looking for interns, which explains why it hadn’t been occupied for the World Cup.) Problem solved!

Plus, the place I found has wireless broadband. Choosy geeks choose Wifi.™

So let’s talk about design

The design of craigslist is poor. Much of the text is too small and the content on the frontpage is crammed a little too much.

The Big Noob posted a potential redesign of craigslist a while back and this was generally regarded as a Good Thing™. It is a very nice redesign, but after using the craigslist frontpage and taking another look at the redesign, I have to admit that there are some things I don’t think are improved.

So I decided to work on it and change a few things. The result: my craigslist redesign.

Reasons why I think my version is a little better:

• The title doesn’t take so much space. The header on the Big Noob version is really heavy, which doesn’t seem necessary for a site like craigslist. I think craigslist has a reputation that speaks for itself and doesn’t need to blast users with a big title. I do like the Big Noob’s map image though.
• The search box has a label. Putting label text as a value in an input is not an accessible substitute for a real label, and rather annoying if you have to delete the text when you actually want to make a search. It’s better to have a hidden label than no label at all.
• The help link isn’t microscopic. Help links should never be tiny. If your users need help, don’t make it hard for them to find it.
• The vertical links are more visually divided. I think vertical links lists with plain text and no borders or spacing are poor for visual users. I think the lists on the original craigslist design are actually more visually usable than the ones on the Big Noob design. I used a few simple styling techniques to make them a little more like the original design.

There are still problems with the redesign, such as tiny text in various parts and some minor css issues. I also didn’t touch the cities section at the bottom since I didn’t want to waste too much time.

Tell me what you think

What do you think about my changes? Do they make it better? What else would you change about the craigslist frontpage to make it more attractive or usable?