Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Craigslist beta-testing mobile version of site



Spotted on a Craigslist discussion forum today: A note from a Craigslist staffer that the San Francisco company is beta-testing new versions of the site that work on mobile devices and tablets. It's not an app, but rather an HTML version of the classifieds service that's optimized for smartphone and tablet browsers.

I gave the Craigslist mobile beta a spin on an iPod touch, an iPad2, and my Android device (Samsung Exhibit II) and was impressed with a few features. However, some elements still need work.

Craigslist on an iPod/iPhone

When you first arrive at your local Craigslist area using an iPod (or iPhone), this is what you see: 



Posting: The UX seems to mirror the steps taken on the desktop browser version of Craigslist: 





















An index view. The big improvement here is the ability to see thumbnails, along with the price. You can also expand the ad to see a bigger picture, right in the middle of the list. However, I noticed the amount of content shown on the screen was less than what could be seen in the Android version (see below) :






















Android smartphone, index view. Note more titles are visible than on the iPhone/iPod rendition:






















iPad screenshots


The main arrival screen:





















The tablet index view looks optimized for smaller devices:






















Previewing an ad on a tablet:






















You can see the mobile/tablet beta yourself by going to craigslist.org on your mobile device and looking for the faint links to the mobile and tablet versions at the bottom of the page.

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