Key takeaways
Smith College partnered with us to modernize and unify its digital presence — resulting in a joyful, accessible, and sustainable platform that empowers editors, delights users, and reflects the vibrant community it serves.
- Increased traffic, engagement, and retention
- Reduced accessibility violations by 99% and achieved a perfect Lighthouse accessibility score
- Unified three major websites into a single Drupal platform
- Seamlessly migrated 30,000+ pages with 90% automation
- Introduced live content previews for editors to see changes in real time
- Built a custom, component-driven design system using Emulsify to support scalable, branded storytelling
- Achieved a Lighthouse performance score of 95 and significant page speed improvements
This wasn’t just a redesign. It was a reintroduction of Smith College to its digital community.
—Randy Oest, Creative Director
Overview
For more than 150 years, Smith College has offered a world-class undergraduate and graduate-level education to women interested in solving society’s complex, urgent problems. Enrolling 2,600 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries, Smith prides itself on developing a global community of scholars, entrepreneurs, scientists, activists and humanitarians who are changing the world.
Despite its storied reputation, the college’s online presence no longer effectively reflected its dynamic, inclusive, and forward-thinking community. Facing the impending Drupal 7 end-of-life, Smith College recognized an urgent need to reimagine their digital platform. They partnered with us to transform their fragmented, outdated website into an engaging, accessible, and cohesive digital experience that truly represents the spirit of Smith College.
This collaboration was much more than a technical upgrade. Together, we unified three major sites, migrated a decade’s worth of content, and empowered Smith’s editors with modern, flexible tools. We also dramatically improved performance and accessibility, creating a digital experience that’s not only easier to manage — it’s more joyful, inclusive, and future-ready.
The Botanic Garden bursts with color on the new Smith College web platform
The challenge
Fragmentation and frustration with an outdated platform
Smith College’s digital landscape had become increasingly fragmented over the years. Their main Drupal 7 website had ballooned to more than 30,000 pages, creating substantial management challenges, maintenance overhead, and inconsistencies. Compounding these issues, two centerpieces of the campus experience, The Smith College Libraries and The Botanic Garden, had branched out onto separate platforms, leading to inconsistent branding and user experiences.
Beyond fragmentation, the site suffered from critical accessibility violations, poor performance metrics, and outdated user interfaces that negatively impacted user engagement and search visibility. The lack of mobile responsiveness and reliance on cumbersome HTML editing processes further compounded content creation and management frustrations. Smith’s digital presence required a dramatic, unified solution to overcome these challenges and better serve students, staff, alumni, and prospective community members.
Joy was the theme. They wanted something that felt fresh, exciting, and full of life — and we gave them the design tools to create it.
—Ashley Hitson, Designer
The solution: A unified and empowering approach
We partnered closely with Smith to develop a platform that would be joyful to use, accessible by design, and scalable for years to come. Our work spanned architecture, design, development, governance, and editorial strategy — all grounded in deep collaboration and a shared vision.
Embracing joy through flexible design
From the outset, joy and inclusivity defined our creative approach. Leveraging our open-source design system, Emulsify, we developed a robust, component-based architecture that offered significant creative flexibility.
To further support flexibility, we introduced a dynamic theming system. Editors can assign unique themes at the section, page, or component level — each drawing from a broad color palette and driven by CSS custom properties. This allowed content creators to shape pages that feel playful and distinctive while maintaining Smith’s cohesive brand identity.
This design flexibility empowered departments to create rich, expressive layouts — whether for the Libraries, the Botanic Garden, or a spontaneous homepage takeover celebrating the basketball team’s Final Four appearance.
Smith was able to completely redesign their homepage to celebrate their basketball team’s Final Four status
It felt like this was the moment where design could really spread its wings. We provided the tools, and Smith took them further than we could have imagined.
—Ashley Hitson, Designer
Prioritizing accessibility
Accessibility was central to our redesign strategy. We rigorously tested keyboard navigation, screen-reader compatibility, and color contrast compliance for each component. Using automated accessibility tests integrated within our Storybook component library, we proactively identified and resolved potential issues.
The result was transformative: Smith’s new site reduced “critical” accessibility violations from 304 to only two prior to launch, ultimately achieving a Lighthouse accessibility score of 100. This dramatic improvement ensured that Smith’s digital presence was not only inclusive, but also set a benchmark in higher education website accessibility.
Smith College’s color system accessibility analysis
Empowering content editors
We worked with Smith to overhaul the content creation experience — replacing clunky, manual workflows with modern, intuitive tools. Editors can now preview, customize, and publish content seamlessly, all within a single interface. The result? A streamlined process that turned skeptical stakeholders into enthusiastic advocates for the new system.
A visual editing experience editors love
We replaced manual, HTML-heavy workflows with an intuitive interface powered by Paragraphs and Paragraphs Editor Enhancements. Each paragraph component was configured with custom preview modes wired directly to the frontend theme, giving editors real-time, true-to-design previews as they built content.
Smart permissions and governance
We implemented a domain-based permission system, allowing editors to manage content specific to their assigned subdomains. Department leads had full control over their sections, while student contributors had limited access. Media assets are curated and moderated before being shared across domains to help maintain quality and consistency.
Smith’s content creation experience far surpasses typical Drupal standards
We delivered an editing experience on par with Wix or Squarespace, fulfilling Smith’s vision to bring back editors who had moved away from the old platform.
—Randy Oest, Creative Director
Streamlining a complex migration
From 45 content types to 11
Smith’s Drupal 7 architecture included more than 45 content types, 20 taxonomy vocabularies, and a mix of layout strategies including Panels and custom Bootstrap markup. It lacked a centralized media library, which made reuse and governance a challenge. We audited the entire content model and streamlined it to 11 content types, 12 taxonomies, and 30 paragraph types — reducing complexity while preserving flexibility.
Automated at scale
Migrating over 30,000 content nodes presented significant complexity given the large number of legacy content types. To streamline the process, we evaluated pages with similar structure and purpose, consolidating them into 11 strategically defined content types. This thoughtful grouping enabled the automation of approximately 90% of the migration effort, significantly reducing the need for manual cleanup.
Multisite publishing on a single platform
We consolidated Smith.edu, the Libraries, and the Botanic Garden into a single Drupal instance using Domain Access. Each retained autonomy and branding while sharing a unified codebase — simplifying updates, permissions, and long-term maintenance.
Diversity in harmony — three websites telling their own stories while speaking in one voice
Community-centric digital experience
Community storytelling became the heart of Smith’s redesigned digital platform. Their new homepage now prominently features rotating profiles of students, faculty, staff, and alumnae, celebrating the diverse and inclusive spirit of the Smith community.
At the heart of the new website is community — reflecting our vibrant, diverse spirit.
Their emphasis on people gave the platform soul, helping visitors see themselves in the Smith experience.
Enhancing performance
The new website significantly boosted performance and user experience. Lighthouse performance scores increased from problematic levels to an impressive score of 95, demonstrating substantial improvements:
| Metric | Before (Drupal 7) | After (Drupal 10) |
|---|---|---|
| Time to First Byte | 1.406s | 1.066s |
| Start Render | 7.300s | 2.300s |
| Speed Index | 7.429s | 3.111s |
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | 7.929s | 3.799s |
These enhancements delivered faster page load times and significantly improved site responsiveness, positively impacting user satisfaction and retention.
Intuitive, user-centric navigation
Working closely with Smith’s internal teams, we restructured the site’s navigation around clear, intuitive user journeys. Primary and secondary navigation improvements drastically enhanced discoverability and ease of use. Users now navigate the site effortlessly, quickly finding relevant information through simplified dropdown menus and clearly indicated user pathways.
We didn’t just rebuild the site — we rebuilt trust in the system. Skeptical stakeholders became some of its strongest advocates.
—Joanna Cendrowski, Technical Project Manager
Results and impact
The data
- Site traffic, engagement, and user retention all increased significantly
- A Lighthouse accessibility score of 100 and an overall performance score of 95
- 30,000 pieces of content migrated, 90% of which were handled automatically
How it helped their team
- Unified digital voice: Consolidation under a single digital strategy significantly reduced management complexity and enhanced brand consistency
- Empowered editors: Intuitive backend experience and robust content workflows converted previously skeptical editors into active advocates of the new system
- Creative flexibility: Editors leveraged new tools to rapidly create responsive, engaging content, such as celebrating the Smith basketball team’s Final Four achievement with a homepage transformation
Details
Services provided
- Accessibility compliance and testing
- UX design and visual design
- Design system and component library creation using Emulsify
- Frontend and backend development
- Automated content migration
- Content strategy and information architecture
- Documentation, training, and stakeholder support
- Integration with third-party systems like CourseLeaf and 25Live
Technologies used
- Drupal
- CKEditor 5
- Emulsify design system: component development and accessibility testing
- Paragraphs and Paragraphs Editor Enhancements: structured content and live previews
- Domain Access: multisite content management and permissions
- Feeds: import course data from CourseLeaf and events from 25Live
- GitHub Actions: CI/CD workflows
Looking ahead: Scalability, sustainability, and community
The Smith College redesign showcases what’s possible when technical vision meets editorial empowerment. This platform isn’t just future-ready — it’s people-ready, too.
The successful launch of the new Smith College website demonstrates the power of thoughtful, scalable digital innovation. It positions Smith for ongoing cost savings, operational efficiencies, continuous performance improvements, and sustained community engagement. Most importantly, Smith’s new site serves as a dynamic digital reflection of its vibrant, diverse community — continuously evolving to meet their needs. As Smith’s internal announcement stated, “We hope you love the new site as much as we do.” Judging by the enthusiastic response, it’s clear the community wholeheartedly does.
Imagine what’s possible for your organization’s digital presence. Together, we can build something remarkable.