The Hamilton Education Program started as a collaborative effort between Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to use the musical “Hamilton” as a vehicle for educational enrichment, bringing history alive for young audiences through the arts.
The website integrates American history education with the arts by allowing students to experience the musical and delve into its history; teachers and students are encouraged to conduct research using the website’s resources. From there, they are empowered to create performance pieces to engage students in civics and inspire a new generation of young historians.
Their sites had become outdated and increasingly rigid, with three main pain points:
- A lack of flexibility: editors struggled to update content, didn’t have the flexibility to create visually appealing pages, and teachers had difficulty managing students.
- A lack of single sign-on: this forced users to log in twice to access content.
- Lackluster search capabilities: the search functionality was frustrating and not surfacing good results.
Working collaboratively with the Gilder Lehrman team for the role-mapping and SSO work, Kanopi began with extensive discovery work in order to dig into the site’s issues and determine the best path forward. This included a content audit, a look at analytics and competitors, user journeys, and more.
The result? A more compelling design following the approved Hamilton pattern library in order to stay on brand. Additionally, the new site gives the Hamilton Team flexibility in curating content personalized to users. Teachers now have a streamlined experience, only signing on once, with student accounts being created automatically so teachers don’t have to create a separate one. Kanopi created cohesion and simplicity with the navigation and user pathways to intuitively guide students, parents, and teachers through a thoughtful experience, be it in person, online or at home.
