Yale University’s INS

Context
We helped Yale University’s Institute for Network Sciences design two new websites for The Human Nature Lab and its director, Nicholas Christakis. Our job was to make the websites as inventive and innovative as the institution itself and those involved, creating two similar branded sites that feature a different message.

Organization
Yale University’s Institute for Network Science promotes high merits of theoretical and applied science through research, education and outreach. The Institute encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and builds from existing expertise at Yale to support these ventures.

Challenge
Both the Yale Human Nature Lab and Nicholas Christakis sites needed to be clearly related in design but still distinct from each other. Both sites also contain a lengthy research and publications list which needed to be searchable and sortable.

Solution
Yale University’s Human Nature Lab focuses on the relationship between social networks and health. With their objective in mind, we created a site that’s intended for a more academic audience. We built Nicholas Christakis’ site to showcase his research, findings and work, and is suited for the public and media.

Each site houses a complex research and publications list, which we successfully incorporated by sorting and presenting them uniquely and with various levels of emphasis. We built the sites in WordPress and created a custom data entry section for the publications, so that staff can easily add news, the latest research, and other data as it becomes available. It was also created in a way that all audiences, whether public, academic, or media, can easily find the resources they need. The results are two user-friendly sites that show a clear connection and association to each other, but are also distinct in their messaging.

• Category: Environment and Social Justice