Craigslist Vs. GoogleBase... FIGHT!

http://www.craigslist.org/

http://base.google.com/

I see a lot of merit in both GoogleBase and Craigslist. They both allow for the user to "drill down" through layers of data to find/advertise goods and services. They both have *vast* resources. However, I am most fascinated by the drastically different approachs they take in designing their interfaces.

First, look at Craigslist. I found my current abode on Craigslist, and it was easy! Craigslist, in my opinion, is a great example of "mastering style and breaking the rules." It's a hodge-podge of various alignments, NO graphics to speak of (unless you go further into the results), and a fairly -bland?- color scheme. There's hardly any contrast, so you might think it would be ineffectual. There is definitely repetition. but GUESS WHAT? Craigslist makes a cool $25 million every year, and has won such awards as "50 coolest web sites"-Time Magazine, #1 Most Efficient U.S. Job Site, Wall Street Journal, #4 Highest Internet Traffic (Career Sites) - Alexa Research, and dozens of other equally impressive awards.

It clearly gets the message across to its viewers, and after a few minutes on the site you will quickly get the navigational rhythm down. I could not think of a way to improve this site. At first I thought that adding some graphics would be helpful, but then I realized it would suck a ton of bandwidth off of their server. Besides, Craigslist is supposed to be minimalist. It's genius. You don't pull graphics off their server until you are looking at a prospective apartment, car, instrument, etc.

The "audience" for Craigslist is over 25 million visitors a month, and it obviously serves them well. It's a perfect visual display for fast-loading, precise research. People want results quickly, and this site does just that. I think that Craigslist succeeds with its implementation of proximity, and the ability to display a huge amount of information at once.

Now onto GoogleBase.

What a lovely landing page! Consistent alignment reigns supreme, with clean graphics and decent contrast. There's certainly more contrast here than at Craigslist. It's a simple interface, and of course makes use of the classic Google search bar. (However, there is something about Craigslist's hundreds of links that makes searching fun!) It is really easy to find the information you need here, as the page is not cluttered. Items are grouped together (proximity) in easy-to-understand clusters, and make it relatively easy to find what you want. Furthermore, there is plenty of elegant whitespace, which lends to great readibility. One thing that they do not emphasize on GoogleBase is the fact that it's free. This, in my opinion is something that needs to be brought out more!

For the less web-savvy, GoogleBase would work beautifully.

oh...I don't know if you've seen this, but it's quite amazing:
http://www.googlefight.com
(It creates a "fight" based on a number of search results in Google.
try making a fight with Craigslist and GoogleBase! ;)