Our Work
Higher Education
iFactory creates innovative, practical media solutions custom-tailored to improve how you communicate and transact with your students, prospects, alumni, faculty and staff.
We've partnered with dozens of higher education institutions, from Ivy League Schools to small liberal arts colleges, from state universities to community colleges. We've honed our process to reflect the skills needed for successful higher education initiatives, including consensus building, user testing, content gathering and the ability to seamlessly integrate with internal IT systems. Here are just a few examples from our portfolio of over 50 higher education projects:
Cornell University Johnson School of Management : Information Architecture, Design, Flash, and Mobile
University of Virginia Darden School of Business : Information Architecture, Design, and Flash
iFactory was charged with creating a website that reflects Darden's incredible reputation. It was not just a matter of developing cutting-edge and relevant features, but integrating them into the larger picture. Some of the various features that bring Darden to the world beyond its Grounds are the Darden Voices pages, which uses various models and widgets to highlight the blogs, podcasts, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds of current students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as the unique Flash piece for the homepage, which evolved from Darden's "open door" policy.
University of Illinois at Chicago : Information Architecture, Design and Flash
iFactory worked with UIC to develop a new site that highlights the School's diverse offerings and one-of-a-kind academic experience. With an area devoted to students and alumni to share and highlight experiences; more quick links to make the application process smoother; and a streamlined design that emphasizes the School's brand attributes, the new UIC website showcases all of the School's qualities, in an easily navigable and attractive site.
Roger Williams University School of Law : Information Architecture, Design and Flash
iFactory collaborated with Roger Williams University School of Law to develop a site with a fast-growing array of interactive maps, videos, photo galleries, profiles, stories and other valuable data resources. RWU Law is the only law school in Rhode Island, and offers future attorneys a rigorous, world-class legal education in a supportive, personalized environment.
Bryn Mawr College : Information Architecture, Design and Flash
iFactory worked with the Bryn Mawr team to refresh the existing Bryn Mawr site. The refreshed website provides users with smart, yet sophisticated design that clearly conveys the College's key messages. The most compelling improvements can be seen on the homepage. Headers and footers have been altered to allow for ease of navigation, as well as access to social media links; a new color scheme better incorporates the College's colors, yellow and white; key messages along with relevant and rotating imagery can be found in a large, central area; and navigation has been adjusted to allow for a more user-friendly experience.
Wharton School of Business MBA Program : Information Architecture, Design and Flash
Challenge: create a site that engages the user, deliver the experience of the strength and defining leadership of the MBA program, and improve the overall usability of the site.
Solution: iFactory conducted discovery, went through a full IA phase, and created numerous concepts and designs for the new site. A functional spec allowed us to confirm functionality before the development team started coding, and custom-based Flash pieces help illustrate the Wharton MBA experience and communicate the strength of the brand.
Harvard Business School Executive Education : Homepage Design
Make sure you check out the new and improved program navigation options: quick search on the homepage, and the full Program Finder (http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/) which lets the visitor quickly filter down to the programs that are of interest to them..
The Harvard Education Letter : Homepage Design
The Harvard Education Letter is one of three sites living under the umbrella of the Harvard Education Publishing Group (HEPG). The other two sites are Harvard Education Press (HEP) and Harvard Educational Review (HER). iFactory is pursuing its great partnership with HEPG, and with this latest deployment, HEPG's online assets have now been fully redesigned and integrated on top of the iFactory CMS.
Harvard Business School : Website Identity
Project: iFactory is working to design an underlying system that will unify and support all future websites at Harvard Business School. Five of the redesigned sites have launched. iFactory has been working with HBS on strategic direction, primary research with target audiences, a competitor site audit, usability testing, visual design and the production of templates for the IT staff to integrate with their content management system.
Click on the graphics below to view just three of the redesigned HBS websites.
Boston University School of Management : Consulting and Homepage Design
Project: iFactory worked with the Boston University School of Management to create an interactive Flash presentation for their homepage that better communicates the elements of their brand message: "Fusing the Art, Science and Technology of Management." We met with key stakeholders, conducted interviews and identified gaps in content. We brainstormed possible features and quickly prototyped interfaces to arrive at a simple combination of video, animation, testimonials and news.
University Of Chicago Graduate School of Business : Front and Back-end Redesign
Project: iFactory worked with the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business to redesign the look-and-feel of their website. The GSB was looking for assistance in implementing a complicated navigational structure, standardizing various dynamic content types throughout the site and incorporating a new look and messaging that coincided with moving into a new building on campus.
Using a site structure and wireframes created by the GSB staff, iFactory created an elegant design with messaging enhancements. During the course of the project, the GSB determined the content management system purchased by the university was not going to allow the GSB to display associated content the way they had planned. iFactory conducted a feasibility study of implementing a commercial content management system and ultimately engineered tools to enable GSB staff to manage and archive dynamic content on the site without development assistance. Currently, the GSB maintains the site on their own using internal staff as they expand the site with new content by added rotating images on the homepage.
New York University School of Law : Website Redesign
Project: Ranked 4th in the nation, the NYU School of Law wanted a web presence that reflected their intellectual rigor, top-notch faculty and interdisciplinary approach to the study of law, as well as their "gritty yet graceful" New York environment.
iFactory worked with the Office of Marketing and Communications to mock up dozens of concepts, build 24 templates for the site and then assist in the IT staff's integration with the school's selected content management system, Stellent. We also designed a rotating Flash module for the homepage that highlights the school's areas of focus, with quotes about law topics by key faculty members.
MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship : Website Redesign
Project: MIT Legatum Center wanted to redesign the existing website in favor of a site that was more visually connected with the website of their donor website. They also wanted to provide information and events, increase the interactive features of the site, enable updates to the site without knowledge of HTML and provide the ability to expand the site in the future. iFactory redesigned and produced the new website in terms of the architecture, look-and-feel and deployment of a Drupal CMS implementation. Media assets such as audio, video and an interactive map were created and integrated into the new site.
Harvard Business School : Institutional Memory Multimedia Timeline
Project: Built to celebrate the HBS centennial, the Institutional Memory website tells the story of HBS over the past 100 years with video narratives from faculty, staff, students and generations of alumni, accompanied by a gallery of historical photos and an interactive timeline.
iFactory worked with the Harvard Business School to envision and build the interactive timeline, housing hundreds of artifacts, which allows the visitor to sort the content by innovations, people and topics. The intent of the Institutional Memory project is to serve as the definitive repository of associated content and stories about the Harvard Business School into the future.
Wheelock College : Redesign
Project: Wheelock College needed to quickly enhance their web presence in time for an upcoming recruitment drive to better reflect the quality and brand associated with Wheelock College by evincing a greater degree of quality within the website. iFactory redesigned the homepage, created designs for subsection templates and delivered HTML and CSS to Wheelock's webmaster to integrate with the site.
Harvard University : Office of Human Resources Website
Project: iFactory worked with the Office of Human Resources to design a Human Resources portal as part of a three-year strategic plan. The new site showcases the OHR’s HIRES job database and captures the excitement of working at Harvard.
Partnership: iFactory has also worked with the Kennedy School of Government and the Center for Cancer Prevention.
Lemelson-MIT Program : Invention Dimension / Lemelson-MIT Website
Project: iFactory redesigned the Lemelson-MIT Invention Dimension site to appeal to corporate sponsors, as well as invention enthusiasts.
Partnership: iFactory has performed work for over a dozen MIT departments including MIT Facilities Department, MIT Museum, Whitehead-MIT Bioimaging Center and the MIT Engineering Department.
MIT Sloan School of Management : Executive Education Programs Site
Project: iFactory worked with Executive Education leadership to develop a visual interface to communicate the key strategic aspect of the program.
Partnership: iFactory is gearing up to complete a one-year redesign project for the entire MIT Sloan School of Management. Stay tuned!
Tufts University : 150th Anniversary Sesquicentennial Website
Project: Tufts University approached iFactory to design a website for their year-long Sesquicentennial celebration. In addition to overall site launch, iFactory created an interactive timeline engine to allow Tufts to document both past and future significant events.
Partnership: iFactory has produced additional solutions for Tufts University’s School of Medicine, Alumni Association and Computing and Communications Services
Yale Law School : Yale Law School Website
Project: iFactory worked with Yale Law School to complete a stalled web initiative.
Partnership: iFactory also worked for the Yale Law Library.