COGR.edu Redesign

Making Policy Click

cogr.edu

ZeroDegrees partnered with COGR to redesign and re-architect their website from the ground up, modernizing the visual experience and transforming how more than 1,000 policy documents were organized, surfaced, and summarized.

  • Usability Testing

    We ride-along as users navigate digital experiences while trying to achieve their goals. Sometimes we ask probing questions. Sometimes we just observe. Unearthing friction early costs a conversation. Catching it later could cost the business.

  • Competitive Analysis

    We study your competitors and the best practices beyond your category to establish the baseline users expect, and to find the openings that let you differentiate.

  • Design Systems

    A design system is what makes consistency survive growth: a shared language everyone builds from, not a set of rules only one person remembers. We deliver it in Figma and Markdown, built to evolve as your product does.

  • Alignment Workshop

    We bring stakeholders together in structured, facilitated sessions that are SWOT-like in spirit. Together we surface priorities, work through disagreement in the room and land on a shared path forward.

  • Experience Strategy

    We evaluate internal perceptions, user goals, and best practices to find what makes your experience worth having. Then we turn it into an action plan for what comes next.

  • Prototyping

    If a picture is a thousand words, a high-fidelity prototype is the entire story. Testing with one gets us past hypothetical reactions and into real behavior, the kind of feedback we can actually trust. With AI-assisted prototypes, we go even deeper, real data, real interactions, insight we couldn’t get any other way.

  • Responsive Design

    We design every feature and flow for every screen it could appear on. The real test isn’t the device, it’s whether every decision still makes sense no matter how someone’s viewing it.

  • Style Tiles

    Establish your visual direction with style tiles — a collection of elements meshed together to create art-direction, typography and visual hierarchy.

  • Visual Design

    Through imagery, messaging, color and typography, we deliberate over pixels, consistency, readability, contrast, accessibility and creativity.

  • In-Depth Interviews

    Through deep-dive interviews we bring users’ unique voices directly into the design process, surfacing the real behaviors and the motivations behind their actions.

The Challenge

COGR is the national authority on federal policies and regulations affecting U.S. research institutions. Its members rely on COGR for timely analysis, advocacy, and interpretation of complex federal policy shifts.

While COGR’s thought leadership was deeply trusted, its website had grown organically over time. Content was dense, difficult to browse, and largely organized by date rather than by relevance or topic. At a time of major federal policy shifts in 2025, COGR needed its website to function not just as an archive, but as a key component of their communication.

COGR’s content was trustworthy and authoritative, but structurally difficult to access on the website:

  • Content was primarily listed by date, not importance or relevance, making search difficult
  • Articles and policy letters were often downloadable PDFs with minimal context.
  • There was no robust tagging or filtering system.
  • Navigation made it difficult to browse by topic or content type.
  • The visual design felt dated and text-heavy.

COGR needed an agile digital platform to support member communications. The goal wasn’t simply a redesign on the surface level. It was to transform a dense archive into a navigable knowledge system.

Collage of screen designs
New designs

Our Approach

ZeroDegrees led the full UX process, balancing research, stakeholder alignment, and strategic information architecture with the practical realities of a Drupal-based implementation. We focused on several areas:

From Date-Based Lists to Structured Discovery

The core of the project centered on making content more discoverable and relevant for visitors. We introduced:

Topic-based categorization

  • Content-type tagging (e.g., Comment Letter, Matrix, Presentation, Meeting Materials)
  • Metadata attributes for filtering and sorting
  • Cross-linking between policy topics and committees
  • Enhanced search and filter controls

Converting Static PDFs into Scannable Web Content

COGR had more than 1,000 legacy documents that needed to be migrated to the new platform. Historically, many were presented as standalone PDFs with little contextual framing. We worked collaboratively with COGR and their development team to:

  • Convert priority documents into structured HTML content
  • Create page templates that support summaries, tags, and related content
  • Preserve downloadable versions while improving readability and accessibility
Images of article elements who's content was created by AI
AI used to make thousands of PDFs searchable and findable

Thoughtful Use of AI for Summarization

What we didn’t do: just add a generic AI chatbot to the site. What we did do: find a practical use of AI to help visitors and site content managers. During migration, we worked with developers to leverage an AI-powered summarization tool to generate concise, accurate summaries for migrated documents. These summaries:

  • Appear at the top of policy pages
  • Provide immediate context for readers
  • Reduce cognitive load for dense regulatory content
  • This was a practical, editorially responsible application of AI, enhancing clarity while respecting the authority and nuance of COGR’s policy work.
Image collage of the new design system
The new design system

A Modern, Credible Visual System

Beyond structure, the redesign needed to reflect COGR’s stature. We developed a contemporary visual system that:

  • Aligns with COGR’s logo and brand identity
  • Introduces consistent typography and hierarchy
  • Uses imagery and color intentionally to reinforce credibility
  • Prioritizes clarity over decoration
  • Improves mobile readability and accessibility

The Results

The redesigned COGR website launched successfully, with positive early feedback from leadership and members.

The new platform:

  • Presents COGR as a modern, forward-looking authority
  • Makes complex policy content significantly easier to browse and interpret
  • Supports rapid communication during evolving federal policy changes
  • Establishes a scalable foundation for analytics and future enhancements

Most importantly, the website now functions as a structured knowledge ecosystem, not simply a repository of documents.

ZeroDegrees never lost sight of our main goal: making our content easier to find and use.

They were hands-on partners through development, and the AI summary feature has proven to be an effective, practical enhancement. We’re very happy with the new site.

Toni J. Russo
 Chief Operating Officer