The Carsey-Wolf Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara supports research, teaching, and public programming about media. Engaging industry professionals and policy makers, as well as students and scholars, the Center seeks to increase public understanding of the role of media in society and inform policy debates.
The Center was previously constrained by a legacy website. Updating the website was a complicated process requiring multiple steps, each of the Center's programs had a different visual identity, and the information architecture of the website no longer reflected the Center's growth and mission.
Urban Insight worked with the Center to create a new information architecture, integrating three sites into one, with separate programs for the Center's Environmental Media Initiative and Media Industries Project. Urban Insight developed a unique content management solution using the popular open source web content management system, Drupal.
The new system enables multiple staff members to update the website, and allows the Carsey-Wolf team to use one interface to manage and update all three sites. News stories, events, and blog posts can now be assigned using a simple tool to appear on the appropriate site. A change in color and theming subtly differentiates the programs while keeping the visual identity consistent.