Design study · Marine research institute · Texas
One Gulf, one Institute, one web presence
A consolidation concept for a marine research institute whose work is spread across eleven separate affiliated sites.
Concept redesign. Facts come from the Institute's published site; this is not the official Harte Research Institute website.
- Research institute website
- Site consolidation
- Component system
- Single sign-on
- Search
- Accessibility
Harte Research Institute — open the working site
Case study overview
The problem
Research institutes accumulate websites. Every major program, center, and grant-funded initiative eventually stands up its own site with its own template, and within a few years the institute's public presence is eleven inconsistent properties that each look like a different organization. The science is coherent; the web presence actively argues that it is not.
The approach
Rather than merging everything into one site and losing each program's identity, the concept unifies at the layers that matter: one brand, one component system, and one login across eleven aligned sites. That keeps program autonomy while making the institute legible as a single body of work. The research itself leads the front page — reef and oyster habitat restoration, fisheries data, coastal wetlands and inflows — because for a research institute the work is the argument, and news and fellowship calls sit behind it rather than in front.
The result
Five routes covering research, the affiliated site network, contact, and search, with a shared component system and a unified accessible presence across eleven aligned sites.
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