UMass Boston

An Associate Professor of History, College of Liberal Arts at UMass Boston approached Thinkbean to partner on a project to help bring years of research from a traditional book based experience to a digital experience. One that would then allow viewers to not only engage with the information but to also have an interactive experience. 

The research consisted of multiple documents, maps if you will, filled with graphics, icons and information that told a unique story. Problem was, that each document had an extensive amount of data points, upwards of hundreds to thousands, making it difficult to present the information in an easily digestible way. 

The Professor was in need of a way to present the information in the documents, and their multiple data points, in a strategic manner to allow for better searching and understanding for the layperson, while also offering the more experienced audience an at will browsing experience.

The Thinkbean team spent countless hours learning about the documents and their detailed information so that we could not only understand it but also provide the best possible solution for others to understand, and more importantly, engage with it as well.

Since the information spanned across multiple documents the Thinkbean team had to design an application that would allow for an easy to use backend for the admin to enter all of the data points as well as an intuitive user interface for viewers to engage, search and learn. 

In addition there was the added need to design the interface to support both layman users, who would need more sorting and filtering tools to be able to understand the documents, and experienced educators and historians who would interact on a higher level with less need for tools and more need to freely navigate the documents. 

In the end the Thinkbean team was able to design and develop an incredibly engaging application which presented all of the documents with easy to use navigation, powerful filtering and sorting tools along with a seamlessly integrated backend for the admin user to manage all of the data. 

This allowed for the Professor to present years of research to audiences of different levels and allow for them to each engage in their own unique way while being able to maintain the data as research continued and additional documents needed to be added or changes.