Why Craigslist

A few months back I was going through some old projects and stumbled upon some test code. It's really nothing special (I think about 10 lines of JavaScript), but it was my first attempt at reorganizing craigslist. It was a simple layout that listed the most recent furniture entries for the San Francisco Bay area. I wrote it back in July 2004 and simply forgot about it. But surprisingly, it still runs just fine.

Like that first attempt, my current attempt at rewriting craigslist was really driven by watching my then fiance search for everything ranging from furniture to wedding dresses. I do Web architecture for a living, so I found myself ignoring what she was looking for and instead watching how she searched. Here was this site with all this great content, but finding what you were looking for took a level of tenacity that I frankly don't possess. I would end it there, but I simply can't pass up the opportunity to detail what I mean by tenacity.

| We found our first apartment on craigslist - This is the view looking out over San Francisco (Click the image to advance) |

Fast forward to December 2006. I was visiting the Philipines with my wife. With time on our hands we eventually started talking about craigslist and everything we wanted it to "be". One day, after a bumpy 10-hour van ride to the rice terraces (which I'm confident was no more than 10 miles by airplane), we decided to stay back at the hotel and relax while the others forged ahead. I grabbed some hotel stationary and started sketching our conversation.

There's no question these designs were strongly influenced by our own experience. Ultimately, when I look at the early sketches, I see a bias towards the For Sale category, and I feel the resulting information architecture reflects this. I would imagine if you're looking for a job, it might not be the optimal layout, but it certainly simplified how I use craigslist.

Enjoy...