Solution.

In order improve the navigation system and stakeholder interaction with the website, I conducted research and delivered a report of suggestions for quick fixes and long term considerations for the Product Management of the Bronfman Center.

Outline of the report

1. Why did we conduct this research and what did we do? – Details on user research and key insights

2. Quick Fixes (including 10 recommendations)

3. Long term Considerations (including 25 recommendations) including a wireframe for student page

4. Journey Map visualising the impact of fixing the main pain point

With this report, I had a conversation to the Product Manager about the best next steps and a rough timeline on how the suggested changes will be implemented. I worked closely with the designer to implement the solutions to create a better web design.

Wireframe

Due to the many insights we gained from the student perspective from our research, I was able to create a suggested wireframe that would eliminate the students' pain points. This allows students to see more information on one page without having to follow many links to get the information they were looking for.

Improved Navigation

This wire-framed journey shows how users navigate the most used web pages on the previous vs. new web design. According to the research, many highly trafficked pages were difficult to find and needed 3 or more clicks from the home page. The wireframe shows easy changes that can eliminate these main pain points.

Jumping into a UX project

I became involved in the website project when I, as an end-user, recognised flaws in their the user survey the Bronfman Center sent out to the community. The survey focussed on student’s and staff’s experiences with the website, however, it did not take a holistic view of the stakeholder’s digital interaction with the Bronfman Center and had following problems with the survey questions:

• Strongly based on assumptions and questions were leading

• Strong focus on difficulty finding event calendar distracted from understanding other potential problems

• Closed questions did not accommodate for all possible answers

• No option to go back to previous answers to change them as survey was filled out

I reached out to the management team to offer my help by using UX methodology to improve the digital touchpoint for the Jewish community. This resulted in a Consultant offer where I planned and executed research end-to-end and helped the designer implement the research-based solutions.

Stakeholder Interview

To get a grasp of the insights of the organisation, I talked to the Communication Manager at Bronfman Jacob Fertig about the pain points they are facing as an organisation when creating and adapting changes to the website.

The current Bronfman Center website was launched during the Covid-19 lockdown, which meant that the footprint of the website rapidly increased within the last year as programming returned to being in-person. This surfaced problems with certain website features, such as

1. The organisation is getting complaints about finding the event page on the website

2. There are conflicting stakeholder interests in what the website should look like

3. Many stakeholders do not know or recognise the importance of the non-student Bronfman initiatives, partnerships and community. For example, our Rabbi Sarna is also the Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates, where he does important peace-building work

We decided that more in-depth research was needed to understand the roots of the problems and how to solve them.

Heuristic Evaluation

I conducted a heuristic evaluation using the Nielsen-Molich heuristics to understand the fundamental problems with the website in a time and cost effective way. It revealed easily fixable problems without an involvement of stakeholders.

Insights from Heuristic Evaluation

Presenting the results of this evaluation helped me gain the stakeholder’s trust as a consultant. I identified opportunities for improvement in content and navigability. This research informed my two main next steps

1. Immediate changes to the website (such as broken and redundant links)

2. Navigation presented as the biggest issue therefore, a card sorting activity would help redesign the information architecture.

With the gained trust in my project, I convinced the organisation to share recently collected survey data on users. This led to a natural next step of analysing this data before proceeding to further user research.

Survey Data Analysis

I was granted access to the Survey data conducted on the User Experience of the website which has not yet been analysed or used to implement change. The data from 50 participants showed an overwhelming overlap of insights with the heuristic evaluation, presenting navigability as the biggest problems.

It also gave new insights:

• Problems with the mobile version

• Popularity of instagram account for finding out about events

• Participants were pleased with visual design

• Web content was not relatable

• Quantitative data on how many people struggle to find event calendar

The survey has provided deep user insights that helped me understand the opportunities for improvement in content and navigation. It confirmed my decision to conduct a card sorting exercise.

User Personas

With the collected demographics and comments from the survey, I was able to create a user persona. In addition, talking to organisation made me understand the other non-student stakeholders who the website is targetted at. The two main stakeholders are:

• Students

• External Bronfman partners

The persona helped me keep the different stakeholders in mind when developing solutions.

Yet, it is important to keep in mind that the wider website's audience includes: students at at surrounding universities, prospective students, alumni, parents, Bronfman staff, university partners, and external partners.

Card Sorting

I conducted the card sorting exercise with 2 stakeholder groups: staff and students with the goal of understanding hot to categorise the website pages. A total of 15 participants organised 25 physical index cards, each representing a page on the website, into categories. We collected their layouts and participants comments and rational.

Insights from Card Sorting

I created a digital version of all 10 layouts and analysed the patterns and rationals for them. This enabled me to draw important insights which informed the decisions for fundamental changes on the website.

1. Students, who are the biggest stakeholder group, do not feel represented enough on the website

2. The research informed how users group information, confirming that group labels in the navigation need to be more clear and representative

3. No one knows about Bronfman's wider community – both students and staff were confused about the non-student programming, demonstrating a need for a more holistic picture of the organisation on the website

Problem Space

I summarised my research insights and all pain points into one problem space and categorised them by theme.

As I saw patterns, I categorised each identified problem into 3 categories to make the solution development easier and in modules.

Developing a Report

Based on the definition of the problem space and the communication with the organisation, I decided that the best solution was to divide the problems up into 3 categories of priority. Structuring the report into these categories would help the organisation implement the suggested changes as they are digestible and easy to follow.

Immediate Changes

Those changes were implemented throughout the research process as they were easy and important to fix, without much deliberation or effort.

Quick Fixes

These changes are easy and relatively quick to change. These suggestions are related to navigation, design and information architecture.

Long term considerations

These changes require the agreements of multiple internal stakeholders, which means that they require time and deliberation for internal discussion and decision making. These suggestions are related to content, label names and importance hierarchies of content. The report points out what areas need work and give possible solutions that could be used.

Next Steps with Product Management

I delivered the report to the Product Manager and we discussed the best next steps that should be taken. The quick fixes will be implemented over the next month with my help. The long term considerations will be discussed and implemented over the summer, before the start of the next semester.

The solutions can be seen at the top of this page.

Impact of User Research

Inclusive of all stakeholder groups

Before the changes, all stakeholders complained about their poor representation on the website. With the holistic approach to creating a new navigation, the website creates a better picture of the vast role of the Bronfman Center, which enables them to carry out their mission more strongly and successfully.

We fostered a more welcoming space for students

By creating a more intuitive user experience, it is easier for students to find community on campus. We surfaced resources which makes them easer to access. This has huge implications for students who are trying to figure out their lives in college and are able to find their way around the Jewish Center which bring them into the space of people who share their identity. This is especially important for students who are studying remotely.