CONCEPTS FOR CRAIGSLIST MOBILE
- xingyu zhong
- Nov 1, 2017
- 4 min read
Our project 4 in Brand Design 1 is designing an app for Craigslist. Well... again, I knew nothing about this website even though they said it was a famous website. Then, I looked at this website before I started anything. I found Craigslist is just like a overall advertisement posting website. It has all kinds information to help you find what you need, no matter communication needs or material needs. Actually, the problem of this website is kinda caused by that too, too many information is all listed in one page without any picture or color difference, which makes its visitors feel overwhelmed. It really needs a more simple and clear design for its page.
But as an app design, I would like to focus on some parts of its information but not all. As I think about the users of an app, they are most the young or middle age people. So, I would like to design an app to fit these people's needs.
Therefore, my audience are young and middle age people who cares about trends and connecting with local people, who are looking for fun and local activities they are interested in, and always use smart phone apps to find local resources.
My app will focus on the communication kind of information of Craigslist, like the community, personals, forums and events, etc. But, it will also has the function to find housing and other material things. I want to position it as the local fun explorer as the explorer band archetype, seeking out and experiencing new things, escape from boredom. This app can help you explore your interest, activities and groups you want to join, and also help you to explore material things that you need.
Here are the moodboards:
Explore:
Simple:
Customize:
As for the name, I am thinking of some but not so sure yet: Tellme, Wazzup, Fun Scout, Wazzfun. In the class, I was discussing with Angel. She said she was not a fan with these names, but she might go with Tellme if she were me. I kinda feel the same too.
And here are the sketches of the screen design:
Angel gave me some suggestions about the screen design. She suggested some people might just want to get the search result immediately but not want to go through all the processes of the app setting up, so it would be better to put those interest finding content somewhere people can choose to do it later. I agree with her but I don't think it would be a long process to do the set up especially you can always choose to tap the "next" buttom to skip everything. I do understand why she would think that way. It was because I was showing her how the app will be when you set up through the whole process.
Another thing she mentioned is about the menu icon used in my second concept of main screen, which is the sketch below:
My design is the hamburger icon is alwaly on the main screens, which is the first screen of home screen, explore screen and my account screen. When you tap the hamburger icon, it will expand out a quarter of circle with the three main screen you can tap on to go to, also it will show you which screen you are on right now by showing a different color of the fonts. And when you tap the hamburger icon again, the quarter of circle part will close, leaving only the hamburger icon there.
Angel said based on the users' experience, the hamburger icon is not working in this way. It should always open a whole page with the menu list and the movement of the opening should be from left to right. She said I should change the icon if I am going to use this design because people would have expectation for the hamburger icon should work in a certain way.
Actually, I don't really get her point here. I don't think it would be a problem just because the menu shows up in a different way. Especially the hamburger icon still represent menu here, would users have a difficult time to know what it is and how to use it because of this design? I couldn't thinking of a "Yes" answer to this question. But as she mention it is different from most of the menu design, I will make some change to the hamburger icon.
The other thing she also mentioned was the position of the menu. She suggested it was kinda inconvenient to put the menu on the up left corner because most people are right-handed. It would be better to put that on the down right corner. I think that is a great idea which I didn't think of. Now, I think it would be even better that users can customize the position of the menu based on their own habit.
Overall, the discussion was very enlightening. It showed many aspects of the design which I didn't even think of. And Angel gave me many helpful ideas. And next week, I am going to make the prototypes out.
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