Craiglist UI redesign

This case study highlights my entire process of designing the solutions, from learning Craigslist users' needs, behavior, and pain points to creating a prototype within 8 hours.

The Challenge

Craigslist has very simplistic functions but a very text-heavy layout. Users navigating around the website think the home screen is overwhelming and often find themselves lost in the text.

My Approach

Instead of having thousands of links on the landing page, I hid the subcategories and displayed the main ones with icons. To create a clean interface, I use the icons to help users see what Craigslist offers. I also have the recently listed products and events shown on the home screen so that users can easily browse through the latest deals.

Research

Know the users

To learn more about the needs of Craiglist users, I conduct quick user interviews with four people. Then, I analyzed & created a persona, so I know who I am designing for.

Learnings from the user interview

01

Text heavy

Users think the homepage is very text heavy.

02

Users' goals

Users come to Craiglist mainly for nearby deals, part-time jobs &finding apartments.

03

Out-dated

Users feel the site looks old and outdated. it does not look trustworthy and professional

04

More Images

Users would like to see more images of the goods

Persona

With the feedback from the users, I translated the insights into a persona. This helps me approach problems with a human-centered focus.

Design

Hand draw with ideas

I like to start with a hand-drawn wireframe in my design process, which allows me to visualize my ideas quickly.

Desktop screen

We are taking the approach with a clean, modern design in mind: More item images & white space

icon

Top-level categories + Highlighted Search

Centralizing search on the top Reducing cognitive overload on the Home screen by hiding the sub-categories under the top categories.

Personalize home page

Show items or jobs that users might like based on the browsing history & personalization. Your location's recently listed items, jobs, and events are shown on the home page for easy browsing.

Mobile screen

Research showed that users' intent differed between mobile and desktop viewing. With this in mind, I highlighted two methods of navigating the app:

icon

Top-level categories + Saved Search

Centralizing search on the top Reducing cognitive overload on the Home screen by hiding the sub-categories under the top categories.
icon

Simple & clean user interface

Clean the home page with a top-level category to direct users to browse and find what they want more quickly.

Next steps

1. Conduct usability testing on both prototypes and gather feedbacks
2. Set tasks & scenarios to test the new user flows
3. Analyze feedback and work my way towards a more refined result.