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.

  • User Testing

    To get decisive, actionable findings, we let users explore without artificial restrictions. We design our prototypes to accommodate this need, as a final product would.

  • Competitive Analysis

    See where you shine, where you don’t, and how to leverage that intel to fill the most important gaps in your experience.

  • Design Systems

    Good design will translate to a good design system — and vice versa. Build your brand with well-defined styles and components at the heart, and it will grow and breathe well.

  • Alignment Workshops

    Bring stakeholders together through structured, facilitated sessions that establish priorities and strategies for a path forward.

  • Experience Strategy

    We evaluate internal perceptions, user goals and best practices to find that “special sauce” that drives an actionable roadmap for your future experience.

  • Prototypes

    If a picture is a thousand words, a high-fidelity prototype is the entire story. Bringing the user experience to life with a fully-interactive artifact is a low-cost, high-value way to iterate without the investment of code.

  • Responsive Design

    We design for the future on today’s devices. Every element is considered for every size display to create an ideal experience for all users.

  • 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

    Climb inside the world of the user with structured interviews that bring their unique voices into the design process.

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