I still don't get the "craigslist looks awful" or "craigslist has terrible UI" stances. It is simple and bare, unflashy, things are where you expect them to be on the first or second guess, there are no gotchas, the colors are balanced adequately such that they aren't glaring or distracting, sections of a page are appropriately positioned and proportioned, and even relatives who have to ask me how to put files on a DVD for the hundredth time seem to be able to navigate and use craigslist with ease. By what actual measure does craigslist have bad design? All I can think is that HackerNews readers have some kind of kneejerk to it because it's in minimal old-HTML style rather than the new pseudominimalist style with pointless animations everywhere instead of static page linking, text that's too big, buttons with no text on them instead replaced by icons you have to guess the meaning to rather than simple textual hyperlinks, and no Konami Code. I have never seen an actual Craigslist user complain about the interface, only internet armchair designers.

I am perfectly fine with craigslist look and as you said things are where they are supposed to be and do what they suggest they will do.

I know of designers who rail against that look though. I think HN follows most of the same craigslist principles.

Success != a great product.

Often times users have no choice but to use the only choice. That's like saying people choose Comcast because it's a great product. No. People choose Comcast because it's the only product.

Craigslist became popular at a time when thoughtful UI design wasn't repeated or regarded as necessary.

Why is craigslist still popular when there are better looking sites around?

Why are sites like HN and the one linked earlier following a similar style.

Cause core of design != look which is how the 3 apps mentioned above seemed to be looking at.

Function needs to be the core of design.

Because all of those sites are established and have unparalleled content. There are no competitors to those websites.

established sites with good content go out of business day in and day out... that happens when they don't have a good functional design and when better options come along.

If they are the only game in town, then I will put up with bad functional design and if needed crawl on my knees to solve a problem of mine.

I remember years back trawling through multiple expertsexchange pages to solve some coding issues.. Now I don't as better options have come along...

Why is the same not happening with craigslist, cause they do the basic job well.. have a functional designed site which solves peoples problem easily.

You know, I'm not sure I want to take advice about what makes a great product from somebody whose own homepage fails to properly hyperlink to their own projects.

Sure looks like good design though. Pity about the functionality. :P

A few years back I used to hear people complain about google's shit looking design. As a software engineer, I thought it was the exact opposite, elegance and simplicity. I don't hear that much any more, I think the complainers have finally worked it out.