Persona-Driven UX and Drupal Development for a Think Tank
We partnered with the Milken Institute to transform its global website—redesigning the user experience, overhauling search and taxonomy, and building dynamic, persona-driven content pathways that drive engagement and funding.
The Milken Institute is a global, nonpartisan think tank that advances innovative economic, health, and policy solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
The Milken Institute’s website was complex, fragmented, and difficult to navigate—hindering its ability to engage global audiences, promote thought leadership, and drive major donor and corporate sponsorship opportunities. Search and taxonomy systems were outdated, and content pathways were disjointed across programs and events.
- Better articulate the Institute’s mission and value.
- Improve navigation for topic-driven audiences.
- Modernize taxonomy and search to surface relevant content.
- Create dynamic, multi-page event sections integrated with Salesforce.
- Build flexible marketing and lead generation pathways targeting high-value audiences.
- Conducted stakeholder workshops, user interviews, and competitive analysis to define personas and user journeys.
- Designed bifurcated navigation—organizing content by topic and type on one side, and by Institute pillars, research areas, and programs on the other.
- Consolidated and streamlined 17+ taxonomies into a logical, hierarchical system with 80+ SEO-rich topic terms.
- Implemented Drupal Search Web Components for a faceted, real-time search experience.
- Designed multi-page event sections and gated content strategies to increase engagement and lead capture.
- Built the redesigned site in Drupal 10 using Layout Builder and a component-based architecture for flexibility and scalability.
- Launched three persona-driven online pathways and targeted campaigns that increased impressions, click-through rates, and conversions.
- Created a robust Content Hub featuring reports, event content, and thought leadership—surfaced via powerful taxonomy-driven filtering and related content.
- Implement a gated content strategy combining free initial access with interest-based follow-up communications to cultivate audience relationships.
Milken Institute’s audiences range from policymakers to philanthropists, each seeking highly specific information. By focusing on search, taxonomy, and pathways, we aligned the site with how users think—not just how content is organized internally. This strategy not only improved discoverability and engagement but also strengthened the Institute’s ability to connect with and convert high-value audiences.
The Milken Institute’s redesigned website delivers a modern, high-performance experience that unites complex content under an intuitive, persona-driven architecture. With powerful search, a streamlined taxonomy, and flexible content pathways, the site now inspires deeper engagement—driving measurable results for one of the world’s leading think tanks.
