UX/UI Design, Web Design
Daf-A-Week: worked as part of a team to design and build a new website for a global nonprofit organization.
Tools Utilized: Adobe Indesign, Adobe Illustrator, HTML, Wix
Design Problem
Daf A Week’s website was outdated and slow (see photos below) and they did not have a way of knowing who was accessing the program and utilizing their resources. The solution was the development of a new website with features that are both user-friendly and attractive. As a result, the brand is more current and enrollment in the program has increased. The organization has also gained the ability to identify the end-users.
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Goals
One goal of the new website was to have a 40% increase in website visitors and 20% increase in enrollment in the program. Another was to offer all the necessary and desired resources for the users.
Target Audience
The target audience was men who have a working knowledge of the Hebrew language and who are interested in joining a program that will motivate them to engage with the Talmud, Jewish texts, on a regular basis. The website is also designed to provide resources to men who are already part of the program.
Persona
While the persona below is fictional, it is based on real information collected about the users.
Web Site Scenario
Joshua is searching for a program where he can deepen his understanding of the Talmud and learn it regularly. He searches online and finds dafaweek.org. He sees on the website that there is a group of men in his neighborhood who learn talmud together and that they are affiliated with the Daf-A-Week program. He decides to join them and creates an account on the site so he can access the available resources. Joshua then tells his neighbor about Daf-A-Week and encourages him to visit the website as well. Joshua's neighbor browses the website and decides that he, too, will join the program.
Competitor Analysis
When designing the website, I looked at kinyanhamasechta.com, the website of an organization with a comparable program. I analyzed their website design in order to find aspects worth incorporating into Daf-A-Week’s new site. I liked the placement of a video on the home page as well as photos and videos throughout the site, which provide a more personal touch. The navigation of the site is very intuitive and user-friendly, and the site feels modern, both on the web and mobile interfaces. I also appreciated how the consistent color theme makes the pages feel very cohesive.
Content Outline and Site Map
Page #1: Home Page
Page #2: About
Page #3: Join Us
Page #4: Resources
Page #5: Bechinos (quizzes)
Page #6: Dedications
Page #7: Locations
Page #8: Contact
Page#9: Donate
Page #10: Sign in
Logo, Favicon, and Typography
Daf-A-Week has a combination mark logo, which is also used as the site's favicon. The colors were updated for the new website (Left is old, right is new). A sans serif font was chosen for the site text to give it a modern feel.
Website Colors
White was chosen as the primary color. White is a good background color and allows for high readability. Blue was chosen as the secondary color because Daf-A-Week is a global program, and blue is globally well-liked. Yellow was used as the accent color because it offers a good contrast to blue. At this point in the design process, the colors were still the same as in the old site.
Wireframe
High fidelity wireframe of the homepage, created using Adobe Indesign.
User Feedback
Current users were asked to provide feedback on the new site. Overall, users liked the new site better. They found it more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing than the old one, however, users found it still did not have the modern feel we were trying to achieve. Some users also felt there was no purpose including the dedications tab on the navigation bar.
Reiteration
We met as a team and adjusted the plan for the new website based on the feedback we received. We decided to include brighter shades of blue and yellow. We also chose to be more sparing with the yellow, following the 60-30-10 rule for website colors.
We took out the dedications tab from the navigation bar, and included a video background for the home page, following what many modern sites have been doing. We also included a chat feature for anyone who has any questions or difficulty with the site. This feature also serves as a mechanism for gaining user feedback. Another feature we added at this point was the new and existing member pages with links to the most relevant pages for each category of user. After completing the design and testing the site, we published it on Wix.
Post Publication / Maintenance
The new site helped Daf-A-Week increase visitors and grow the program. Using Wix also gave them the ability to see analytics and better understand who the end users are. For the few months after publication, I was responsible for the maintenance of the site*. One of the things we discovered a few weeks after publication was that the site was slow due to too much media on the website. It is for this reason that there is no longer a video and there is instead a hero image on the home page. There were also minor changes made, such as including drop-down menus and adapting the site for mobile to make the website more user-friendly.
*This site was completed in 2020 and I was responsible for maintenance until the beginning of 2021. Dafaweek.org is no longer an accurate representation of the work that I did.