It's not easy to criticize Craig's List. Most everyone wants to meet Craig, lock his head endearingly, and order him rounds of Brooklyn Lager. And his list? Oh gosh... the original copy should be under glass alongside the Constituion. Three Cheers for CL! Buyers love it. Sellers adore it. Designers cite it as an example of 'what works'... made by people 'who get it.' Get what? Clean, simple, oh so elegant design. Outkast perhaps had CL in mind when writing"So fresh and so clean clean." But there is room for improvement.
Users who want to save a Posting to read later have only one choice: "Email this Posting to a Friend." Savvy users know that they can Email themselves. But what a chore! It's a 6 step process::
1. Click link "Email Posting to Friend."
2. Input Friend address,
3. Input Your address.
4. Click Submit button.
5. View Confirm page.
6. Click to return to listing (or use Back button 2 steps).
What a drag. After doing that for each Posting, you can then log into your email, and check out the posts. And what if you seek to view the postings offline? Often when reading posts, I like to make a copy for my Desktop, to view in Word. How do I accomplish that? Well, by Copying and Pasting of course. And yes, there is room for error! Often I forget to grab the headline, or contact info. My bad, right?
Or, maybe it's Craig's bad. Maybe his list is not perfect. Perhaps endless rounds of free beer are not the best medicine for designing user interfaces. Welp, Craig. Let me be give it to you straight (as unpopular as that term may be among your list's social set):: it is high time you make it easy to SAVE POSTINGS.
When scanning Print ads, users circle ads. We should be able to do so here too. Here's what I suggest:
1. The mouse is a Red Marker. (This is easy to accomplish. Yes, it is a graphical enhancement, but it doesn't affect load time or screen appearance, just the mouse).
2. To 'circle' an ad, the user can 'make a circle' (in practice, click anywhere on the headline) or click a "save post" link atop and below the posting.
3. A right column on Screen: displays saved ads.
4. Right column contains links:
Send saved ads to Email.
Save to Desktop (Word or Text Doc)
Delete (checked) listings.
Oh, Craig. You can get this right. Hasn't EBay given you any advice? No. Just a lot of beer. What?! You prefer Anchor Steamer?! I, I didn't know. I just assumed you dug Booklyn Beh. I forgot you're from San Fran. Well, you've got kindred spirits out in Booklyn. Make it easier to save posts, and you will be all the more loved!
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