Academic Research Portal Platform Design

Content Portal • Library Management System • Publisher • Dashboard • E-Commerce

The Goal

Background

Being one of the world’s leading academic publishers, their goal
is to provide a seamless experience in research and discovery
to empower researchers, scholarly societies, universities and
libraries worldwide.

Goal

Provide a unified experience for multiple personas such as the researcher, librarian, author and customer service admin
Give customers more reasons to spend time on the platform
To increase return usage of the platform

Discovery

What we discovered

Multiple imprints designed by different teams over the years, led to an inconsistent and disjointed experience
Failure to recognise multiple roles of a user and provide the right customer care across systems
Isolated journeys spread across different platforms needed to be consolidated
Readers care more about relevance of the material than source and format

Key Takeaways

Design Principles

The building blocks

Taylor and Francis needed to make the experience simpler and more intuitive for its users. This meant having a UI that was easier to navigate, and provide more use to anyone interacting with it, so it could inspire academic learners and professionals alike.

Nudge for discovery

Create a destination for the academic community

Reduce friction in functional journeys

Nudge for discovery

Create a destination for the academic community

Reduce friction in functional journeys

Intervention

Easy to evaluate and access relevant content

Complex purchase journeys for multiple formats of academic content made available to researchers. Enabling different models of access based on requirement.

Personalised feed for discovery

Tailored recommendations based on research interests, building a network with peers, analytics on published works and relevant industry updates.

Streamlining manuscript submissions and tracking

Funnelling the submission process for authors by removing distractions, and providing tips through more complex parts of the journey.

Insightful librarian dashboard

Creating a management system to access titles in one place, getting insightful analysis of content usage and a snapshot of budget allotment.

Interventions

Easy to evaluate and access relevant content

Complex purchase journeys for multiple formats of academic content made available to researchers. Enabling different models of access based on requirement.

Personalised feed for discovery

Tailored recommendations based on research interests, building a network with peers, analytics on published works and relevant industry updates.

Streamlining manuscript submissions and tracking

Funnelling the submission process for authors by removing distractions, and providing tips through more complex parts of the journey.

Insightful librarian dashboard

Creating a management system to access titles in one place, getting insightful analysis of content usage and a snapshot of budget allotment.

Interventions

Easy to evaluate and access relevant content

Complex purchase journeys for multiple formats of academic content made available to researchers. Enabling different models of access based on requirement.