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by sytelus 3327 days ago
Craiglist design actually sucks. When I first used it, the whole thing was almost revolting from design perspective. Where some people see simplicity, others see utter lack of modernity, friendliness and affordability. I still can't get some of my relative to use it (they ask me to post on their behalf!). Before you cite page counts, revenues and unique users, think about how many people are not using it despite the fact everyone has heard about it and everyone has a need to sell something on and off. Amazon UX is almost complete opposite of craiglist but is usable by much much wider audience.
4 comments

I mean, we can't prove who "isn't" using it. We can prove that millions and millions of people are using it and seem to be content with it; we can provide anecdotal accounts (including by many people in this thread) that the simplicity and straightforwardness and consistency is what brings them back to the site. I can tell you that everyone I know looks at Craigslist when they're looking for apartments. But I get that you don't like it; I just think you need to acknowledge that's a preference, rather than an objective fact.
I use CL to advertise for my manufacturing business. It delivers 95% of our customers to our online store, and it does it for a monthly advertising budget of $270. We have $15-30k monthly revenue from these customers.

Craigslist's design works for us.

I like websites that don't change. I can come back to Craigslist once or twice a year, year after year, and it's exactly what I remembered. No hunting around, no discovering new gestures and behaviors. It's simple, obvious, and it for what it does, it works.
Just imagine the number of people that would immediately reject craigslist if it got a clever 'redesign.' It has worked the same way is forever and there are people who are not incredibly computer literate who rely on it. If craigslist moved as fast as facebook then in my opinion I think it would have been already been replaced.