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Yup, there's a catch-22 here: when your site has shitty usability but is the only source of information, people hit more pages and spend more time there. When y

Yup, there's a catch-22 here: when your site has shitty usability but is the only source of information, people hit more pages and spend more time there. When you fix your UI mistakes, they're in and out quicker because they actually get what they need efficiently. Because you're optimizing for engagement by measuring time on site or something like that, you end up making sure never to make your site easy to use. This is not a recipe for success. It's a symptom of measuring the wrong metric, especially when you have a near monopoly on a market due to network effects. If this is really why Craigslist is not improving their UI, they need to hire some analysts that actually know WTF they're doing.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Because you're optimizing for engagement by measuring time on site or something like that Oh good, nobody actually told you how they measured but you already know! Bravo.
- ceph_ 14y ago
  Remember, if the numbers don't support your opinion, it's because your measuring the wrong thing!
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- stingraycharles 14y ago
  I can tell you from first-hand experience that they know what they're doing. They measure almost everything, nicely put together in dashboards with all the KPI's for the appropriate managers. I think it's unlikely they used a suboptimal performance indicator to judge the site's new design, and would say the same thing about craigslist.
  - vl 14y ago
    If only they would measure amount of spam in their for rent listing that currently nearly useless.
    - nestingtest 14y ago
      testing nesting sorry
user49598 14y ago
Haha, I see what you did there. You confused UI with Usability. Craigslist is incredibly usable. Have you taken a look at Ebay lately? Does it look familiar? That's cos it hasn't significantly changed in 10 years. Is that because they don't care? Nope, it's because gradients and drop shadows make your product look better, but don't make it more usable. Craigslist is a utility, not a website. They care about keeping it useful not only for users today, but for users in 10 years. That's not something startups care about at all. Startups are looking to amass users and then sell. Craigslist cares not about such goals. Go ahead, get mad at their inflexibility. But then take a step back and think about what craigslist represents. And then wonder if you yourself would have the cajones to stick to your guns in todays startup market. I for one commend their ability to keep their product strong in the face of all the bells and whistles of web 2.0 or whatever it's called these days.
- soup10 14y ago
  I disagree, craigslist sucks. It's filled with spam and it's searching and sorting options could be way better. The only reason they don't have many competitors is because they have an information/platform monopoly. Just like many other tech companies, ebay and facebook come to mind as obvious examples.
- SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
  >You confused UI with Usability. I certainly don't confuse the two. I couldn't care less what Craigslist LOOKS like, but its usability is profoundly broken in some areas (Denver Metro, for example). The problem is that there's a Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins Craigslist. For those of you in the Bay Area, that would be roughly like having a distinct San Francisco, San Rafael, San Jose, and Santa Cruz Craigslist. If you're in between those places, which one do you look at? You have to look at more than one. Even if you're IN one of those places, which one do you look at? Sometimes three or four, if it's something you're willing to drive an hour to buy. And if you're POSTING, where do you post? If you post a popular item to Boulder (because, say, you live in Boulder), then people in the next town over who only know about Denver won't see it, so you also have to post to Denver if you want everyone in a reasonable radius to see your item. Which means you have to violate Craigslist policies AND mess with your listing enough to get past its spam filter. The sad thing is they've fixed it to the 80% level in the Bay Area, where the whole (extended!) Bay Area (even Santa Cruz, which isn't really Bay Area) is on a single Craigslist site with sub-area filters, but they just leave it broken here. THIS is a usability problem. And honestly so is the lack of "map these results," for times when you want to see which ones are closest, or which ones you could stop by on your way to work, or whatever. It's not because it's not shiny or doesn't have gradients or drop shadows. It's because key features that I want from a classified site are sorely lacking.
poppew 14y ago
Keep in mind 95% of their site is not the product they are trying to sell. It is in craigslist's best interest to keep users glued to their site. If someone takes 30 minutes to find a used bike instead of five then great. Maybe there is a chance the user get's bored of cruising bike listings or on one of their many trips to see the latest postings will click on the job section. Craigslist uses their massive user base on the free portion of their site as a significant competitive advantage over all other job posting sites. It is actually in their best interest to make it harder for users to find what they want. Craigslist is not in the business of people selling stuff to each other, they are in the business of attracting enough eyeballs for enough time to their site to click on enough job listings to keep their revenues flowing. They have absolutely no incentive to change or improve. I am pretty sure when they look at their revenues (the ultimate metric), it is actually doing pretty well.

sliverstorm 14y ago

Because you're optimizing for engagement by measuring time on site or something like that Oh good, nobody actually told you how they measured but you already know! Bravo.

ceph_ 14y ago
Remember, if the numbers don't support your opinion, it's because your measuring the wrong thing!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
stingraycharles 14y ago
I can tell you from first-hand experience that they know what they're doing. They measure almost everything, nicely put together in dashboards with all the KPI's for the appropriate managers. I think it's unlikely they used a suboptimal performance indicator to judge the site's new design, and would say the same thing about craigslist.
- vl 14y ago
  If only they would measure amount of spam in their for rent listing that currently nearly useless.
  - nestingtest 14y ago
    testing nesting sorry

user49598 14y ago

Haha, I see what you did there. You confused UI with Usability. Craigslist is incredibly usable. Have you taken a look at Ebay lately? Does it look familiar? That's cos it hasn't significantly changed in 10 years. Is that because they don't care? Nope, it's because gradients and drop shadows make your product look better, but don't make it more usable. Craigslist is a utility, not a website. They care about keeping it useful not only for users today, but for users in 10 years. That's not something startups care about at all. Startups are looking to amass users and then sell. Craigslist cares not about such goals. Go ahead, get mad at their inflexibility. But then take a step back and think about what craigslist represents. And then wonder if you yourself would have the cajones to stick to your guns in todays startup market. I for one commend their ability to keep their product strong in the face of all the bells and whistles of web 2.0 or whatever it's called these days.

soup10 14y ago
I disagree, craigslist sucks. It's filled with spam and it's searching and sorting options could be way better. The only reason they don't have many competitors is because they have an information/platform monopoly. Just like many other tech companies, ebay and facebook come to mind as obvious examples.
SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
>You confused UI with Usability. I certainly don't confuse the two. I couldn't care less what Craigslist LOOKS like, but its usability is profoundly broken in some areas (Denver Metro, for example). The problem is that there's a Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins Craigslist. For those of you in the Bay Area, that would be roughly like having a distinct San Francisco, San Rafael, San Jose, and Santa Cruz Craigslist. If you're in between those places, which one do you look at? You have to look at more than one. Even if you're IN one of those places, which one do you look at? Sometimes three or four, if it's something you're willing to drive an hour to buy. And if you're POSTING, where do you post? If you post a popular item to Boulder (because, say, you live in Boulder), then people in the next town over who only know about Denver won't see it, so you also have to post to Denver if you want everyone in a reasonable radius to see your item. Which means you have to violate Craigslist policies AND mess with your listing enough to get past its spam filter. The sad thing is they've fixed it to the 80% level in the Bay Area, where the whole (extended!) Bay Area (even Santa Cruz, which isn't really Bay Area) is on a single Craigslist site with sub-area filters, but they just leave it broken here. THIS is a usability problem. And honestly so is the lack of "map these results," for times when you want to see which ones are closest, or which ones you could stop by on your way to work, or whatever. It's not because it's not shiny or doesn't have gradients or drop shadows. It's because key features that I want from a classified site are sorely lacking.

poppew 14y ago

Keep in mind 95% of their site is not the product they are trying to sell. It is in craigslist's best interest to keep users glued to their site. If someone takes 30 minutes to find a used bike instead of five then great. Maybe there is a chance the user get's bored of cruising bike listings or on one of their many trips to see the latest postings will click on the job section. Craigslist uses their massive user base on the free portion of their site as a significant competitive advantage over all other job posting sites. It is actually in their best interest to make it harder for users to find what they want. Craigslist is not in the business of people selling stuff to each other, they are in the business of attracting enough eyeballs for enough time to their site to click on enough job listings to keep their revenues flowing. They have absolutely no incentive to change or improve. I am pretty sure when they look at their revenues (the ultimate metric), it is actually doing pretty well.