Homepage
Homepage
Opens with current cooperation news, the institute's scientific journals, recent meetings, and upcoming announcements — what a researcher or visitor needs above the fold.
Case Study · 03 · Scientific Institution
Institute of Geology. Public website for an Azerbaijani scientific institute.
Redesign of the public website for the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, operating under the Ministry of Science and Education. The new site reorganises research, publications, and field activity around what visitors actually look for.
Year2024
RoleLead UX / UI Designer
Duration6 months
ScopeUX · UI · IA
gia.az · live
Overview
A public site built around use, not hierarchy.
The Institute holds decades of geological research, hundreds of publications, and ongoing field observations across the Caspian region. The previous site presented this as an internal document tree. The new one organises it around four sections — research, publications, news, and the institute itself.
Scope of work
- 01Website
- 02Information architecture
- 03Design system
- 04Trilingual AZ / EN / RU
The site is organised around what visitors look for, not how the institute is structured internally.
Selected screens
Selected screens from the new site.
About
Brief info
The institute's history as continuous prose, with a single hero photograph that grounds the text without overpowering it.
News
News and meetings
A grid of scientific council meetings, conferences, and field events — each one linked to a full report with date, location, and participants.
Management
Leadership, on the record
Named portraits of the institute's leadership — director, deputy, scientific secretary — each linked to a fuller profile and direct contact details.
Publications
Publications, on a phone
Monographs, joint reports, atlases — restructured around how researchers actually look for them. The same information architecture survives intact on a phone.
Approach
Design principles.
01
Hierarchy by use
Publications, news, and contact moved to the top. The organisational chart moved down.
02
Plain language
Page titles answer questions instead of listing disciplines. Scientific accuracy without academic jargon.
03
Restrained visual language
Quiet typography, limited colour, and generous spacing. Appropriate to the institutional context.
Process
Process.
-
01
Stakeholder interviews
Six conversations across researchers, administration, and communications.
-
02
Content audit
Mapped roughly four hundred pages, dozens of publication types, and the main user journeys.
-
03
Information architecture
Navigation restructured around research, publications, news, and about.
-
04
Prototype
Tested with three researcher segments and a non-specialist reader.
-
05
Launch
Trilingual AZ, EN, RU. Accessible by default. A short content style guide was handed to the communications team.
Outcomes
Outcomes.
3
Languages at launch
400+
Pages restructured
4
Research areas indexed
AA
WCAG 2.2 audit