In Craig we trust.
In this month’s print issue of Wired, Craigslist is the cover story. One of the features was to invite different designers to redesign the front page.
I’m wondering, why?
As I wrote on plentyoffish, its dysfunctional design is a plus, since it has absolutely no pretensions, thus making the site more accessible.
If you are a Craigslist user like me, accessibility is a breeze. Find the section on web design jobs once, click on the purple link every time I go back. People forget that for most users, all you need for navigation is the back button and visited links.
Search functionality is pointless, as listings become less and less valuable in time (I find that job listings are stale within a week). There is no maginal benefit to redesigning Craigslist.
Besides, having read the article in the end Craigslist doesn’t care what everyone else thinks. It doesn’t have to, since there is no pretender that can challenge it.
Long live 20th century web design!
Note: A better take on the article.
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