University of Chicago College Admissions
Designing an admissions website for an elite university is an exercise fraught with peril: how to “appeal to the kids” without forgetting that said kids are very intelligent, savvy, and suspicious of being pandered to? Happily, the University of Chicago’s Office of College Admissions was an ideal client for working through these challenges. With its legendarily quirky essay questions (example: “How do you feel about Wednesday?”) and fun, humane approach to the life of the mind, the Admissions department was looking for a smart, engaging, and colorful new site to match its singular approach to the admissions process.
I began preparations for this project by watching an incisive documentary about today's youth entitled Juno. From this film, I learned that modern pre-college young adults use terms like "honest to blog" and are extremely sassy!
But anyway. This design aims to be clean, modern, and fun. Bright splashes of color, transparency screen effects, and subtle asymmetries lend energy to a grid-based layout. jQuery is used for Javascript interface enhancement throughout the site, adding richness and encouraging exploration.
This project was a monster. Not pictured in these screenshots is a private section for applicants; this applicants' application handles online decision letter delivery and other major functionality. (For a couple months after this project, I couldn't look at a web form without feeling slightly queasy. That has since passed.)
Visit the site:
What I Did
- CMS/Blog Implementation
- Coding and Development
- Graphic Design
- Information Architecture
- Usability Testing and Analysis
- Web Application Interface Design