The Cornell Law School asked IWS to create an updated and inviting website that would enhance the school’s brand and result in users having an increased awareness of the school’s strengths. They wanted prospective and current students to find information quickly, and with relatively few clicks, and external audiences to notice the unique programs, centers of excellence, collegial environment, and invigorating location that comprise the Cornell Law experience.
The IWS team worked together with the client to create a site designed around the Law School themes: academic excellence, a collegial environment, personal access to world-class scholars, leading international programs, and a commitment to public service.
To reach the Law School’s goal of providing prospective students with an accurate view of the school and its surroundings, IWS created a virtual tour of the school using a beautiful watercolor painting of the Law School’s building with flash hotspots as an interface to the QuickTime VR panos.
The Law School had a number of existing videos on their previous site, and wanted to keep the videos, but give them a more modern and user-friendly presentation. IWS created a media player to show the videos and organized them thematically for an elegant and intuitive presentation.
Throughout the site, IWS worked with the stakeholders to develop innovative and web-friendly content that reinforced the Law School themes throughout the site. All stakeholders were trained in writing for the web and given a customized guide showing good and bad examples of writing for law schools worldwide. This helped the content providers keep the content user-friendly even after launch.
IWS worked with the stakeholders and the content providers to ensure that the Law School’s themes were consistently echoed throughout the site. For example, to highlight the collegial environment, the home page spotlights notable alumni and current students. Similarly, since many of the top law schools are in or near major cities, IWS created a Guide to Ithaca to highlight the beauty and sophistication of Ithaca and to give prospective students a sense of what it's really like to live here.
Link to Law School Guide to Ithaca
The site received many compliments from users and industry professionals about the innovative design that IWS delivered to the Law school.
Date Completed: Fall 2006
Page Count: 450
Cost: Approx. $260,000
Time Spent: consultation: 3 months; design: 5 weeks; development: 5 months
Al Gonzalez
IWS Assistant Director
Phone: 607-254-8631
