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It seems like people are making the mistake of generalizing from a sample of one. Craigslist does things in a certain way, and craigslist is a success. The la
by karzeem 17y ago
It seems like people are making the mistake of generalizing from a sample of one. Craigslist does things in a certain way, and craigslist is a success. The latter doesn't necessarily follow from the former.
Sure, it's a lean organization, and sure, that's good. They've cut out a lot of stuff that they can truly get along fine without. But if craigslist didn't exist and you wanted to launch it today, you would never launch the design it's famous for. And yet you'd stand a good shot at real success.
So craigslist has been successful in spite of its design. In the face of the things people like about the site, the design ultimately didn't really matter. I don't know why people can't just leave it there and instead feel the need to infer causation.
- josefresco 17y agoTo infer the opposite truth without investigation or evidence to back it would be equally wrong. I would put Craigslist's clean/basic design in the list of reasons why it succeeded while others failed. It may be a small % but they certainly didn't succeed despite it.
- karzeem 17y agoIt is a clean design, and that's good, but there's a really long list of things that are wrong with it. Things they could fix while retaining a clean, stripped-down experience. In light of that, I'm confused about why people ascribe so much of the site's success to its design. A better design doesn't have to (and shouldn't) mean a heavier one. It doesn't seem to have hampered craigslist, though, and that's why my best guess puts it in the "nonfactor" category.
- apotheon 17y agoNone of what you say Craigslist did wrong obviates the importance of recognizing what Craigslist did right. It seems that what it did right has proven more important than what it did wrong in this case, in fact, further attesting to the value of what it did right. If you want to do a similar job better than Craigslist did, you should probably do what Craigslist did right, and look for ways to improve it without undercutting those positives. In short, the fact Craigslist does some things wrong doesn't mean you can't learn from its example.
- anamax 17y ago> So craigslist has been successful in spite of its design. How about some supporting evidence? Better yet, how about some evidence for your belief that certain changes would make it more successful? Of course, such evidence should include some indication of how we're measuring "success".