Advancing equal and inclusive, multiracial and multiethnic democracy and self-government
The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation convenes Harvard University students and academics with practitioners and policymakers from around the world. Together, they produce rigorous research, new ideas, and expert analysis on issues including civic engagement, antiracism in governance, and tribal sovereignty.
In its role as a Harvard Kennedy School research hub, the Ash Center’s main purpose is to innovate and share its learnings. However, the 10-year-old site’s information architecture and limited functionality made it increasingly difficult to meet that goal. Plus, one of its programs — the Rajwali Foundation Institute for Asia — had grown to the point that it needed its own website.
Our solution was two research-forward websites, a single content management system, and full translation capabilities.
Strategy-driven content design
The old website organized its content around its program teams, not their work. A card sorting exercise exposed that the approach made sense to the Ash Center insiders, but not to their key audiences.
From there, the team started brainstorming ways to put their work at the forefront. The result was a content-rich homepage and easy-to-search content library, supported by informative landing pages for every program.
Two sites, but not twice the work
One of the Center’s flagship programs — the Rajwali Foundation — had grown enough to merit its own website as part of the project. The communications staff planned to cross-promote some content on the Center’s site, but they worried about the extra effort and the risk for errors.
To solve for both concerns, Teal built the two websites on a single publishing platform. Admins can author and edit a single piece of content, and check the box to publish on both sites.
Because its work focuses on Asia, the Rajawali Foundation required flexible translation capabilties. The new site accommodates any language, including those written right to left and those that use alternative character sets, such as Chinese.
Scalable event pages
The Ash Center and Rajawali Foundation host many events throughout the year, from hourlong webinars to multi-day, multi-speaker conferences.
Teal designed a flexible events page template that beautifully markets simple events. It also includes optional components that seamlessly expand the page to accommodate the complex content needs of big conferences.
ExceptionalPage ExperienceRecognition
The Ash Center’s website redesign represents a rare achievement in modern web development: receiving full “Good” ratings across both mobile and desktop platforms, as measured by Google’s Core Web Vitals.
These metrics reflect the site’s technical excellence, ensuring fast loading times, stability, and ease of interaction for users across devices. Achieving such ratings highlights the site’s strong user-centric focus, which aligns with the Ash Center’s broader mission of engaging scholars, policymakers, and practitioners with reliable, accessible content.
This seamless experience not only enhances the credibility and reach of the Ash Center’s research but also positions them as a leader in digital accessibility and performance. The “Good” ratings serve as a critical validation of the investment in creating a platform that meets Google’s stringent performance standards while ensuring that the important democratic research and resources are as easy to access as possible for a global audience.
From the start, the Teal team pushed us to think about how every decision we made would impact user experience. They were constantly problem-solving to meet our unique needs. The result is two amazing websites that exceeded our expectations. We regularly receive positive comments on not just the new design but how easy the websites are to use on the backend.
Sarah Grucza
Assistant Director of Communications, Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School
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Teal Media is a woman-led creative agency that builds brands and websites for nonprofits, foundations, and mission-driven organizations. We have a core presence in Washington, DC and Detroit, MI.
Teal partnered with Groundswell Fund to help them bring their work to life through a pair of dynamic sites that showcase how they build grassroots power.
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