The Francis Crick Institute
Showcasing the vitally important work of Europe's largest biomedical research facility.
The Francis Crick Institute is Europe's largest biomedical research facility hosting 1,500 staff and 120 research labs. It is dedicated to the understanding of fundamental biology to improve health and combat diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and infectious diseases. The Francis Crick Institute's aim for this project was to extend the principles of openness and collaboration to their digital space.
Challenge
The new website had to provide a digital representation of the extensive research and collaboration taking place at the institute. Each lab functions as a mini organisation with a unique culture, specialisms, and approach, and a new website was needed to showcase this diversity and interconnectedness, as well as creating an environment that supported staff's offline interactions and innovation.
Approach
We sought to address these challenges by empowering staff with tools to manage their own lab's microsite within the overarching Francis Crick Institute's website and brand. We provided them with editorial control, customisation of the website's aesthetics, and publishing rights. We also worked closely with the institute to develop lab-specific and topic taxonomies to help visitors understand the connections between the broad ranging labs and areas of research.
To ensure this approach was effective, we conducted extensive testing and validation. We also trained the institute's internal teams to support the site post-launch and ensured our project processes and development activities were transparent and compatible with the institute's ways of working.
Results
The success of our work with the Francis Crick Institute is reflected in the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from stakeholders and audiences. The new website also generated some impressive analytics data including a 33% reduction in the bounce rate and a 39% increase in the average duration of a user session. These results demonstrate that users are finding content of relevance to them and spending significantly more time engaging with the new website.
"I am absolutely delighted with our new website... It was refreshing to work with an agency who worked hard to understand our particular organizational and audience needs... The team had a really positive, can-do attitude throughout the project, always willing to find the best solutions to our many requirements and never fazed when we added a new complexity... Their attention to detail and meticulous work on design and development quality shone through."