Scott Robinson Vers 1.1 | Craigslist Usability Evaluation Page 1 Introduction Craigslist.com wants to provide community info for the Web. This information includes classifieds, house sale;/rental offerings, community announcements, personal and for the focus of this evaluation, job postings. With some simple redesigned elements, Craigslist.com can increase it suability to is s.f. bay area job seekers. Site & Solutions At A Glance: Craigslist was originally designed with a relatively tech-savvy audience in mind. Because of that, the design is very clean, very Nielsen-like in its sparse and simple design. Due to this aesthetic, the textual display code is where substantial changes can be made for the greatest effect. The changes noted are themed around jobs, and also specifically around how a user understands Craigslist.com is organized. These are mainly grouping solutions, lowering the cognitive load on the user.

Scott Robinson Vers 1.1 | Craigslist Usability Evaluation Page 2 Some additional comments about the home page: Although grouping is done well overall, the title of the page, san francisco bay area, isn't visually attached to the rest of the content. With all of these blocks of text, it is hard to group them accordingly. This site may be for the benefit of tech-savvy users, but the use of a greater-than sign instead of "search" or "go" for the search submit button is unconventional. Also, the search text field is quite limiting due to it small width. One great element on this page is the user of red as a pop-out to show new content areas. Problems Lots of jobs to choose from. On the home page there are 24 groupings of jobs. Job seekers go straight to this section of the page. Once entering the pages of this section, users want to browse around the different job groupings. Since there are 24 of them, your ideal job might not fit into just one of these groupings. For example, would you put a human factors job under "internet engineering jobs", or "web design jobs" or "software jobs"?

Scott Robinson Vers 1.1 | Craigslist Usability Evaluation Page 3 Problems This is where you might get into trouble. There is no one-to-one matching of the original 24 job groupings on the home page, and the 24 job groupings provided in the drop-down menu displayed throughout the jobs section. This inconsistency in language shows a lack of visual momentum, requiring a higher cognitive load on the user to decide what action to take. Redesign The simplest redesign would be to match one on to the other, preferably to match the home page job groupings on to the drop-down menu.

Scott Robinson Vers 1.1 | Craigslist Usability Evaluation Page 4 Problems A job seeker will usually explore the locations of jobs. This step can be confusing due to a design choice. There is no clear hierarchy, on the home page or in the jobs section, of the difference between s.f. bayarea sub- regions (san francisco, south bay, etc.). Even on the top of the jobs pages, the structure, with pipes between each subgroup, is confusing and doesn't help me understand the hierarchy. (There's also too much going on between the breadcrumbs and the list of geographic regions.) Redesign By providing some visual hierarchy—with bold type and indentation—to these elements on the home page this clarification will be made when it is first presented. In addition, providing similar hierarchy in the jobs section (although not in the same vertical design, but still accomplishing the same purpose) it is reiterated and provides redundant information and valuable grouping of information to the user.

Scott Robinson Vers 1.1 | Craigslist Usability Evaluation Page 5 Problems The problem with the locations of jobs comes into play when a user is trying to post a resume. The site requires you to choose a sub-region of the s.f bayarea in order to get to the posting process (it's the first step, shown in the screen shot to the left). But what's the difference between these choices? What, for example, constitutes south bay and not peninsula? Without additional cues, mislabeling could run rampant. (This is especially true if they don't know that s.f. bayarea is the “uber-region” for all of these sub-regions). Redesign Provide a list of cities for reference for each of these sub- regions to help posters get through this process. In addition, a labeled map would help those not knowledgeable of the s.f. bayarea to help them understand the context of the site as a whole. (The map won't help in specific bordering areas unless it's detailed enough—thus the list of cities can help provide specific answers.)