January–April 2022 + April–May 2023
Interaction Design Overview
University of Cincinnati
Website simplification and redesign for Craigslist — an advertisement posting website. The refresh focuses on usability, categorizing information, and minimizing overwhelm while defining a new brand identity system.
What Were We Working With?
Pain points: The current Craigslist site is overwhelming, has a poor hierarchy of importance, is over-informative, is inconsistent with UX standards, lacks system status, and has confusing language.
How might we help users efficiently + effectively search for and post about their housing needs?
Redesign priorities:
Simplify — minimize content seen on screen at a time
Utilize Icons — less reading and quicker identification
Chunk Information — easily to skim sections
Show Progress — breadcrumbs for knowing what’s done, what’s next, and how much is left
Categorize — separate content into “find” vs “post” for broad site organization and understandability
Benchmarking
Zillow
Standard map/gallery split screen view
Uses “buy, rent, sell” language and overarching categories
Gives the ability to save and share listings
Apartments.com
Standard map/gallery split screen view
Evident “Add a Property” button
Contact info straight away in the post
Hilton
Standard map/gallery split screen view
Evident status bar
Many filter options and once applied, shows filters quantity with an option to reset
Redesigned Information Architecture
Unlike 240+ links on the original homepage, my redesign chunks the site into two primary actions: Find or Post.
Task 1: Select housing and look for apartments near the University of Cincinnati. Switch to map view and filter the results. Review the details of a post.
Task 2: Create a new post telling others that you are looking for housing. Fill out the details and review the preview of your post.
Wireframe Progression
Through iterating and testing, I further learned that everyone does not think exactly like I do. It became evident that my linear way of thinking wasn’t the most helpful for all users. I recognized my biases and instead created different ways for the user to do the same task through buttons in multiple places, different page layouts, etc.
Visual identity
Blue, inspired by Craigslist's home page of un-clicked links, is friendly and trustworthy.
Yellow adds a pop of surprise, like finding exactly what you’re looking for.
The typeface Inter, designed by Rasmus Andersson, was created to be easier to read on computers.
Select Final Pages
Search for housing near the University of Cincinnati.
Task 1 Prototype
Create a new post announcing that you need housing.
Task 2 Prototype
