I recently wanted to buy and sell some furniture and checked out craigslist. Was hugely put off by what was, for me, totally counter-intuitive UX and ugly desig

I recently wanted to buy and sell some furniture and checked out craigslist. Was hugely put off by what was, for me, totally counter-intuitive UX and ugly design. Poked around for a bit, ended up using a different service and was very happy. From what I understand, Craigslist has been losing popularity recently, and I have no doubt that the 90s feel of the site is a big contributor. Existing users of sites may be temporarily irked by a redesign, but they can be huge for keeping the site attractive to new users. They should happen infrequently, but they have a purpose. IMO Craigslist has made a huge mistake by leaving the site unchanged for so long. I know for a fact that Reddit suffers from this as well. They have mentioned it in lots of places, and I'm confident that's backed up by their user studies. Visual appeal has a huge effect on new users, and I'm sure that's why Reddit is doing what they are doing.