A Window into the College
IfThen collaborated with the University of Chicago to transform its College website into an experience that inspires and informs prospective and current students, faculty, and staff. Our goal with the design was to create a unique lens into campus, helping prospective students imagine themselves participating in the vibrant student life of the University while providing current students with clear communication of the opportunities and rigorous academics the College provides.
Capabilities
Digital Strategy
User Experience
Visual Design
Design and Component Library
Usability Testing
Drupal CMS Development
Content Authoring
Our approach
1. Communicate the mission and offerings of the undergraduate program. Clearly convey the distinct academic offering of the College — its student culture, academic programs, unique history, distinguished faculty, and sense of place. Focus on the undergraduate experience and needs of key audiences including prospective recruits, faculty, and students.
2. Capture visually compelling moments of on-campus culture. Provide a glimpse into campus life through the creation of custom cinemagraphs that illustrate unique and organic moments on campus. Use these visuals throughout the site to provide visual interest and capture the prospective students’ imagination.
3. Create a distinct modular design system. Design a new visual system — components, layout, and look and feel — that accurately reflect the university’s unique history while speaking to a modern and diverse audience. Create a template and component library that can be extended across other departments, centers, and offices.
4. Train content authors through custom videos and workshops. Ensure the students and staff responsible for maintaining the design integrity of the template and component library have training and resources that can be used on-demand so that the creation of new pages and content can scale widely across campus. Create and maintain a style guide and YouTube channel for ongoing reference.
5. Extend the design system across campus. As other schools and departments are ready, extend the design system providing a beautiful yet cost effective experience to communicate their unique story. Create and add new components on an ongoing basis ensuring that work done for any one area of the University benefits all.
A transformative user experience helped showcase the transformative educational experience that the University of Chicago offers. Our work with the College not only captured their unique mission providing a lens into campus life, but also was distilled into an extendable set of tools ensuring that other units of the University can rapidly adopt a compelling and modern user experience for years to come.
Deliverables
Strategic Brief
Audience and Persona Definition
Visual Design and Style Guide
Interactive Prototypes
Custom Cinemagraphs
Content Authoring Guide and Workshop
Template Development
About UChicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Sector
Higher Education
Acceptance Rate
6%
Founded
1890