User Needs Research Purposive Subject Research Paper

Question: Does Craigslist make it difficult to find a new job because of its navigation?

Both R1 and R3 felt this was the case. "It's a mish-mash" of positions and makes it difficult to find exactly the job of interest is what R1 said. Both felt that a more complete search functionality would be very useful. R3 felt that the lack of personalization mad4e it a matter of luck to find a job of interest that precisely would match her need.

Question: What would you change about the navigation of Craigslist to make it easier to use for job search?

R1 said that a multi-tier search with attributes that could be defined by the user would be excellent, and R3 felt that having a relative measure of the trustworthiness of the posting and verification would be useful. Both felt that in its current state the website had limited value yet could be made more effective with stronger navigation. Search is the most requested enhancement to usability in e-commerce and job-related sites globally, which is supported by this initial research (Sindhuja, Dastidar, 2009).Question: Does the lack of personalization of Craigslist frustrate you?

Both R1 and R3 said it definitely did, and crippled the functionality of the site for their specific and unique needs. They both also mentioned that personalization needs to have attributes that are relevant to them, another point supported by secondary research of usability best practices (Sindhuja, Dastidar, 2009). Both R1 and R3 also mentioned that their needs change over time for a jobs website, and the current usability did not allow for variations in these roles over time either. As a result, the jobs section of Craigslist was of limited value to them today.

References

Bernoff, J., & Li, C.. (2008). Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web. MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(3), 36-42.

Finkel, E. (2009). NOT JUST FOR APARTMENTS AND USED GUITARS. ABA Journal, 95(7), 30, 32.

Sindhuja, P., & Dastidar, S.. (2009). Impact of the Factors Influencing Website….....