Bryant University Redesign

The Challenge

For more than a century, Bryant has been known as a leading New England business school. Today, the University is a vibrant community of young leaders who thrive in an highly intentional interdisciplinary environment where they can explore their purpose and passions.

But you would have never known this by visiting Bryant’s old website, which was filled with staid photos, not-so-inspiring academic program descriptions, and beautiful campus buildings that were oddly devoid of student life. Even the site’s grey-and-plum color palette missed an opportunity to celebrate the beloved Black and Gold of Bryant’s popular athletic teams and their devoted fans (Go Bulldogs!).

The challenge seemed deceptively simple: find a way to make Bryant’s digital presence reflect its energetic and inspiring
campus experience.

Our Approach

We began by going straight to the source, conducting in-depth interviews to understand how prospective students and parents 
were experiencing the site. What found that their target audience simply couldn’t understand what made Bryant unique or why they should attend.

The user experience didn’t help tell the compelling Bryant story. 
Site visitors were constantly “pogo-sticking” back and forth between search results and drop down menus and individual pages, on the hunt for answers about Bryant’s diverse offerings.

The greatest sentiment we heard came from the University community itself. The site didn’t reflect the incredible “quad” atmosphere at the school. Bryant is a small learning community by design, but it’s big on energy—and no one saw this coming through in the digital presence.

Working closely with the internal Bryant team, we began a full-scale make-over. First, we oriented the user experience around the user—organizing content by user groups, whether they were undergrads, grads, or professional education students. Next, we infused the site with youthful campus energy. Image galleries were designed like social media feeds, with vertical portraits and quick video clips. And we moved away from the grey and plum and embraced the Gold and Black, showcasing Bryant’s winning basketball, baseball, and golf teams in all their full-color glory.

Most significantly, we brought Bryant’s interdisciplinary learning model to the fore. At Bryant, students are required to take minors outside of their Business major. Many of the parents we interviewed found this model valuable since they knew from their own experiences how often career interests change during college. Exploring a minor (or two) in the Liberal Arts or Health and Behavioral Sciences provides built-in flexibility—exposing students to different ways of thinking, learning, and doing that benefits them far beyond the office suite.

Visually, we wanted to bring this all to life with student, teacher, and staff testimonials from across departments and schools, exploring their diverse interests and accomplishments in authentic videos, photos, and quotes. We built a flexible testimonial design system that the Bryant team used to populate the site with well over 200 individual stories that helped prospective students truly understand what Bryant was all about.

The Results

Today, the Bryant.edu site is on par with the best business schools out there—while exposing all the rich opportunities that surround its celebrated business curriculum.

But we think Eric Meier, Director of Creative Services at Bryant said it best. “Collaborating with the ZeroDegrees team on the Bryant University website redesign was a fantastic experience. Their ability to conduct thorough user research—both internally and externally—and seamlessly integrate our feedback resulted in a significantly improved final product. The on-site workshops which they led, guided our institution through a collaborative process that earned full support and approval from our community. Additionally, the ZeroDegrees team developed a comprehensive Figma-based design system to support implementation, maintenance, and future growth. This modular, long-term solution empowers us to scale the site as needed and adapt to evolving needs across our broader web ecosystem.”