Market Context

The University of Washington Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) sought to refresh its brand and website to better reflect what a global innovative technology program looks and sounds like.

Originally launched in 2017 with support from Microsoft, GIX is the engineering-and-business institute for emerging technology leaders. The institute offers an 18-month Master of Science in Technology Innovation program with dedicated technology labs and capstone experiences, but also offers global experiences and professional development programs for tech-related careers at any level.

Because of the interdisciplinary nature of GIX and its proximity to the University of Washington (UW), the brand and website needed to reflect its positioning within UW as well as accommodate a diverse portfolio of programs.

Solutions

Formative refreshed and modernized the brand system with the intention to align closer to UW while elevating unique elements of the existing GIX brand. When engaging with GIX, it’s paramount for students and business leaders to feel the trust that comes with a major university like UW, but also to understand the distinction of GIX.

The website re-design showcased the extent of the new brand system along with an enhanced user experience to improve how visitors engaged with GIX. Key programs were elevated, calls to action made more prominent, and interactive features that made the content more digestible.

As part of the GIX website refresh, Formative re-platformed the GIX site to a new content management system that allowed GIX better control over site design and content as well as additional security and accessibility measures. The content system offers enterprise-level security, easy user governance, and content updates with no development necessary. Speed and performance were important to keeping prospective GIX users engaged on the site, so we implemented optimization tactics to keep the site load time within the ideal range.

Using an agile approach for the design and development allowed us to move in parallel where possible throughout the project. Using a component-based approach, we designed page templates for the essential pages as well as additional components to be interspersed throughout other pages on the site. Each of our components is flexible and responsive, allowing it to be used across the site wherever needed and for the entire design system to be scalable.

For GIX, we created dynamic components with additional functionality, such as changing color, layout, or behavior – these components gave GIX greater control over the final look and feel of the site.

The final solution enabled the GIX team full control of the website without additional development assistance, and with a flexible design that does not limit them to the pages that the Formative design team templatized.