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GOALS
"Refresh the design of the Craigslist homepage, taking into account modern design sensibilities and making rational decisions about information priority"
EMPATHIZE
Who are Craigslists users?
What do they shop for?
How do they feel while using Craigslist?
These are some of the questions I thought about while sending out Google Surveys and doing phone/zoom interviews.
Dislikes
“the unknown factor when buying and item. It’s hard to know if something is trustworthy on Craigslist compared to eBay or Amazon.”
“I feel like there are a lot of irrelevant posts that don’t match what I’m looking for.”
“a lot of people I reach out to on Craigslist don’t ever respond”
“interface is too rudimentary and Craigslist has reputation for nefarious activity"
Likes
“overall, I really appreciate that it’s simple and straightforward. I like that I can find niche housing arrangements if I’m in the market. I like that I can find things locally and search by location. And I like that there are a lot of items in general and that there is the ability to filter search results.”
“it’s accessible to anyone (ie anyone can post or search)”
“I like how it's updated frequently”
DEFINE
Creating an idea web to synthesize findings into insights
HOW MIGHT WE...
Modify the existing platform to create a unique browsing experience that provides the right amount of reassurance at peak points of discomfort and speeds up* the slowest parts of the purchasing process?
*or at least makes the user aware of what’s going on behind the scenes
IDEATE
1/5
Figuring out what the most important features are and how it can be displayed/how new information can be displayed in unused space
PROTOTYPE
Highlighting areas with new changes, showing fully deselected home page
Showing the main page for a user who selects 1) housing and 2) for sale in "my categories", with 3 selected search areas. Buying activity progress shows how far along the user is in their purchase of a mountain bike.
TEST
Creating a functional prototype in Figma and allowing users to explore the new changes. While the homepage was the only essential part of the redesign, I wanted to build out more functions so that users could get a sense of the new features.
click here to explore my Figma prototype!
1/4
Walking users through the new features of the craigslist homepage as a welcome banner when entering the site for the first time.
1/4
Adding the functionality to post directly from the homepage and see your selling progress in the same window (this was a pain point I wanted to address although it was not directly related to my insight).
FINAL EDITS/NEXT STEPS
Making tweaks to make the browsing experience more intuitive, such as changing radio buttons to boxes in "my categories" or centralizing the "search", "location" and "post" boxes. Reorganizing the layout to create personalized features on the left and general features on the right. Finally, adding a landing page to offer the user the choice to explore the updated or original site.
Next steps:
• add messaging feature to “my activity” tab so that users do not need to switch back and forth
• build wireframes to explore saved searches under “my activity” tab
• A/B testing to hone details with a larger sample size
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