Hillel: Introduction
The website for the Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach (Hillel) suffered from a number of problems facilitated by not knowing what their users wanted, not having a responsive design that worked on mobile, and also that their developer became unreachable and so the site stagnated. Hillel is a Jewish non-profit college organization serving 5 campuses in South Florida. A study of the site's various user groups and design yielded significant improvements to the experience and potentially increased involvement of all user audiences.
This study was conducted from June - August, 2018.
Before and After
Problems identified
The site did not provide the content that users wanted
The site provided old content and content that was not important to users
Content from multiple user personas was mixed together in a way that made it unclear who the content was for
The site’s primary users typically used mobile to access the site, and the site was not designed for mobile
There was too much simple “black text on white background” for the site to be engaging
Social media content was more current and salient, reducing the motivation to use the website
Business Goals
While Hillel’s use of social media was effective for outreach, social media is not ideal for “reference” material as compared to “what’s happening right now or soon”.
High-level goal: Engage more students and provide programming for them to continue their Jewish Journey
Encourage students to join Hillel and stay with Hillel
Encourage donors to support Hillel (unusual for a Hillel, but this one covers 5 colleges over two counties)
Make it easy for students to find and attend programming events and other opportunities
