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Giving a face to international research. Starting from a blank page.
A research project at the University of Padua needed to exist online, clearly, accessibly and at a level worthy of an international audience. Not a restyling: a site built from scratch, able to tell the complexity of the research and make it usable by different audiences. Today that project has a living platform — and the first feedback came from colleagues around the world.
WHO THE CLIENT IS
Who the client is.
The University of Padua — one of Italy’s most prestigious universities — engaged in an international research project (MiCoLL). The request: a site able to communicate the complexity of the research, show the collaboration between universities and make heterogeneous content usable by different audiences, from researchers to external stakeholders.
Behind it, a concrete pressure: not to disappoint the expectations of internal and external counterparts, not to fall behind digital standards, and to use online communication as a lever for academic reputation.
THE CHALLENGE
A blank page: all the freedom, all the responsibility.
This was not a restyling, but a project from scratch — and that changes the perspective: no inherited technical constraints, but nothing to hold on to either. The real challenge in cases like this is translating needs that are often unstated into concrete solutions. So we started from listening: understanding objectives, audiences, tone of voice, accessibility requirements and the expectations of the people who would run the platform.
Only then the information architecture, the navigation flows, the technologies. In an academic context, clarity is not an aesthetic flourish: it is how research becomes accessible.
WHAT WE DID
A modular approach, from analysis to going live.
The design work involved all the project’s key people, in an integrated path: defining the information architecture and the navigation flows with clarity in mind; a visual design consistent with an academic identity but able to stand out internationally; a responsive, accessible platform that is easy to update, on modern CMSs and scalable technologies; SEO integrated from the design stage.
Particular care for usability: an intuitive navigation that guides people through complex content — from transcriptions of historical documents to visualizations of linguistic data — with flexible layouts that adapt to very different material.
ADAM phases: Analyze + Design + Measure
Information architecture
Accessible web design
CMS
SEO
—
BUILT
WHAT WE BUILT
Five choices, one accessible body of research.
01
A site from scratch
Intuitive, accessible and responsive, designed for an international readership.
02
A clear content structure
Simple navigation even for someone arriving for the first time.
03
A visual identity people recognize
It strengthens the academic reputation and the ability to attract partners.
04
SEO from the design stage
Visibility on search engines built in from the start.
05
A CMS the team runs
The research team updates the content quickly and independently.
→ THE PRINCIPLE
Clarity is substance
In an academic context, a site people understand is what makes research genuinely accessible.