Three-site consolidation and comprehensive redesign

By the time Happy Cog was fortunate enough to assist with the digital strategy for another key function within the Harvard ecosystem — Harvard College Admissions & Financial Aid — we were already well-versed in many of the internal and external perspectives that shaped Harvard’s brand and messaging goals through our work on Harvard’s primary website.

At the beginning of our engagement, the Harvard College, Admissions, and Financial Aid websites were separate, each responsible for delivering content to audiences interested in many of the same things. One of Harvard College’s primary goals was to make its information easier to find, so Happy Cog was charged with combining three independent websites into a singular, comprehensive experience.

Happy Cog’s primary mandates for this project were to make relevant content findable at all points, to create a rich and immersive experience, to establish a clear and compelling voice, and to provide smart tools and resources that anticipated user needs. By making good use of existing assets, empowering users through thoughtful navigational structures and simplified content (including video), and incorporating effective social sharing, we greatly enhanced the experience for myriad audiences. We also created an extensible design system to provide Harvard College with the tools it needed to maintain and evolve the site.