Simon Business School Event Importer
Project Goals
Simon Business School asked me to create a more functional way to bring higher visibility to their admissions events on their website. The current events structure for the website consisted of manual listings where content editors had to input all event details into the website, but then would link them to a Slate page that also had this same information, and then would ask users to register for the event outside of the website. The Simon website also split up multiple event pages across each program section of the website. Finding a more intuitive way to maintain updated event information, with a simplified user journey that required clicking through less pages would help to increase event attendance, and help to recruit more potential applicants for the school.
Role & Collaboration
I worked as the lead User Experience designer, working closely with developers to create a functional importer that pulls all events into Simon Business School's website, and categorized them by type of event, and what program the event is related to.
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Tools & Resources
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Figma
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Drupal
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Web Design
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Branding
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Digital Presence
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Usability
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Wireframing
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Accessibility
The Problem
During a content realignment exercise, User personas were created to identify the highest sell-points for potential applicants looking for a graduate level business school. While Simon lacked the statistics that other top business schools had in terms of their program rankings, Simon had a highly respected community and faculty/student relationship. To highlight this, the Simon admissions team held regular events that let potential applicants come and spend time both with faculty and staff that resulted in higher conversion rates during each application cycle. The current event structure for the school was set up in a way that split the information up across multiple pages, and required fully manual input. This led to information becoming out dated and hard to discover.
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Lack of Visibility: Splitting the events up across 4 separate events pages led to a loss of traffic as the top level events page had no events in it, and the events pages specific to each program specific page had no true call-to-action to direct the user there.
Out-dated content: relying on manual content being entered both on slate and within the Drupal site led to a lot of content being forgotten or out of date
Low conversion rate: The business school relied heavily on these events for recruitment during each application cycle. Having a difficult event structure resulted in lower registration numbers and a loss in potential applicants.
User-frustration: Many users reported not being able to see any events at all or not having a way to reliably register for an event
Confusing structure: Sending users across multiple event pages vs using a filtered events page to choose and compare between event types resulted in high bounce-rates from these pages.
Within the old setup, Simon's event pages were split into 4 separate webpages, one for each program type. While these events were entered manually, certain pages were regularly forgotten about. This led to potential applicants think that no events were happening at the school, even if events were scheduled. The only way to see events would be to go to the admissions slate platform directly, which did not follow the same styles as the school's website, and looked like a third-party source. Events are one of the top ways for higher education to connect with potential applicants for each admissions period.
The Solution
The solution to handle the above challenges was to create a single events page where you could filter between program type, and event type. This would list out all the events related to the selected criteria, and link off to the events details page where a user could register. To make sure that we were not sending users from the Simon Drupal site onto the Simon slate site, an importer was created to pull and embed the slate information directly onto the Simon core website. We also set up a pre-filter link for each program so if a user clicked on a call-to-action from within a specific program section, the event filter would be preset to show events relevant to the program they currently were viewing. This solution aims to accomplishes the following goals:
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Higher event visibility: Having a single dedicated event page nested in the top-level of the navigation will increase traffic to events pages and lead to higher attendance for admissions events.
Up to date content: Creating an importer that pulls directly from the admissions Slate platform, and embedding the details directly onto the Simon Drupal website means that information will stay consistent and up-to-date, with less manual updates across both platforms.
Increased event registration: Having a more user-friendly process for event registration should result in higher yield for each event.
Improved sitemap: This solution helped keep events content at a top-level and focus
User Interviews
With a tight budget and lack or resources, our best method for user interviews was to talk with current URochester students, and Admissions councilors who work directly with these students and hear their questions and concerns. With a small sample size of 15 participants, we were able to identify the key goals and pain points seen from our target audience when looking for information on Simon events. The following are a sample of the questions used during these interviews.
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“Can you walk me through how you usually find events hosted by the business school (workshops, info sessions, networking events)? What makes them easy or difficult to discover?”
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“Tell me about the last time you registered for a school event. What felt smooth, and where—if anywhere—did you hesitate or drop off?”
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“What typically motivates you to register for an event, and what might prevent you from signing up even if you’re interested?”
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Key Findings
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As a result of these interviews we were able to highlight the highest impact areas we could cover were the following:
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Need for increased event visibility: The main struggle seen across participants, was that it regularly seemed that no events were listed on the website. They were all willing to attend, but didnt know where to gather the information to do so.
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Reduced number of event pages: With a number of events pages, all showing nothing, it was difficult and confusing for users to know where they truly should be looking to gather the proper event information.
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​Need for clear filter options: There was a need to clearly differntiate between what events are part of what program, and whether they are virtual or in-person. Identifying these fitlers was accomplished in collaboration with admissions counserlors.
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Uninformed Call-to-actions: The old event page led off witha number of CTAs redirecting users off of the page. With the intent behind this page being to deliver event information, immediately deterring users to visit a different part of the site appeared to hurt registration numbers.
Wireframes
