Design Eye leaves Craigslist cold 28 June, 2006
I really like the Design Eye series. It’s great to see worked examples of the design process and it’s very brave to do these kinds of exercises in public (with the payoff of good marketing for those involved, of course), but I have to say that their latest attempt, restyling the community site Craigslist, isn’t my cup of tea. There’s something homey in that jumbled list of links which just hasn’t translated into the redesign.
Craigslist is about things that matter to people: jobs, houses, politics, personals, but I don’t get that from the new site. It feels too corporate and slick to me; those blues and greys aren’t approachable. (The one area where they do score is Cameron Moll’s mobile-friendly version, but on the small screen it’s more about positioning services than look and feel.) Perhaps it’s time someone did a brand eye for the design guy series because if Craigslist does adopt the proposed redesign San Francisco will never have felt colder.