8 best academic lab websites to inspire your lab site

Creating a standout academic lab website is crucial for showcasing research, attracting collaborators, impressing funders, and engaging with the public. An effective lab website combines clear design, informative content, and a user-friendly experience. Here, we explore eight of our favorite academic lab websites that excel in these areas.

Here, we’ll share our insights into what makes these websites shine so you can apply the same principles to your own research and lab websites.

1. Bhamla Lab

• Focus: Biophysics and biomechanics in nature

• Design: Clean, professional, with engaging visuals and a well-structured layout. The inspiration for this design was the 19th century “Cabinet of Curiosities.” Bold fonts and playful touches capture the unique vibe of this research lab.

• Features: Detailed research sections, publications, team information, and media highlights.

• User Experience: Easy navigation, with a strong emphasis on visual content to explain complex scientific concepts. The site’s design helps visitors quickly understand the lab's research focus and achievements, while showcasing the lab’s personality.

2. Campbell-Staton Group

• Focus: Evolutionary consequences of human activities

• Design: Modern and visually appealing with high-quality images and video. The lab’s brand is inspired by comic books, street art, and Afro-futurism. The films “Black Panther” and “Into the Spider-Verse” were important sources of inspiration.

• Features: Story-rich project pages with custom logos, research highlights, news updates, and publications.

• User Experience: Clear and engaging content with a strong narrative element that connects the research to broader human impacts on the environment. The storytelling approach, where the story and aims of the lab unfolds as you scroll through the site, makes the research accessible and interesting.

3. Yesilbas Lab

• Focus: Molecular biology to detect life on Mars

• Design: Professional with a focus on simplicity and clarity. The inspiration for this design was the beauty and depth of space, with strong reds sourced from the color of the planet Mars. We added colorful gradients and simple animations to bring dynamism to the design.

• Features: Research areas, publications, team bios, and lab news.

• User Experience: Straightforward navigation, with well-organized content that makes it easy for visitors to find information. Intuitive layout with a strong visual appeal that reflects the lab’s research focus. The design helps create a connection with the audience through molecule-centric aesthetics.

4. The Birds & The Trees

• Focus: Biodiversity conservation in urban spaces

• Design: Friendly, minimalistic, and nature-inspired. The audience for this website is policy makers, in addition to typical academic audiences. The design emphasizes urban planning that benefits both wildlife and people, with custom illustrations of relevant bird species and photos featuring green cities across the globe.

• Features: Research projects, team members, publications, and blog updates.

• User Experience: Intuitive layout with a strong visual appeal that reflects the lab’s research focus. Easy to navigate with a clear structure, making it simple to find information about their research and team. The visually rich design enhances user engagement.

5. Barrett Lab

• Focus: Insect welfare and cognition

• Design: Bold, modern, and visually engaging, with a strong emphasis on large, high-quality images. The goal of this design was to showcase adorable and charismatic insect species that are commonly used (and badly treated) in agriculture.

• Features: Research highlights, team information, publications, and lab news.

• User Experience: Bold graphics immediately draw users into the focal species and research. Bright colors and subtle animations keep the visitor engaged all the way down the page. Navigation has a clear structure, making it easy to find information about the research, publications, and team.

6. Karen Sears Lab

• Focus: Evolutionary developmental biology (“Evo-Devo”)

• Design: Elegant and compelling with a focus on high-quality images and detailed illustrations of species. The interplay of dark and light patterns, with contrasting illustration colors, keeps the user engaged as they scroll.

• Features: Research projects, featured studies, team bios, and news updates.

• User Experience: Exciting while uncluttered and intuitive, this site feels aligned with adventurous brands like National Geographic. The illustrations draw users into the science by showcasing charismatic species. User-friendly with delineated sections and engaging visuals that highlight the lab’s research focus and achievements.

7. Crowther Lab

• Focus: Global ecosystem ecology.

• Design: Clean, with a strong focus on impactful visuals and video content. The simple design allows the power of the media and the lab’s accolades to shine.

• Features: Film and media, rich case studies and dynamic team pages.

• User Experience: Engaging and informative, this site is packed with information about the research and how it’s being put to work in the world. Users cannot help but feel impressed by the awards, collaborations, and attention for the work. The navigation is robust but relatively intuitive.

8. Lab to Land Institute

• Focus: Translational research in agriculture and ecology.

• Design: Bold and exciting. Animations are paired with big fonts and bright colors for a dynamic first impression. Strong branding and powerful storytelling only enhance the experience of navigating the site. The side navigation feels fresh.

• Features: Big animations, bold colors, simple but compelling content layouts.

• User Experience: The site feels big and exciting, while having minimal content and very simple navigation. The power of the brand and storytelling really carry the user experience. The site is small-but-mighty and delightful to browse.

Inspiring Designs for Your Lab Website

These eight academic lab websites show just a sliver of what is possible for lab websites, in terms of effective science communication and engaging user experiences. By combining powerful narratives, compelling visuals, and user-friendly navigation, these sites effectively showcase scientific research and attract a wide and global audience for the work. Exploring these examples can provide valuable insights and inspiration for creating or improving your own lab website.

Schedule a meet-and-greet to tell us more about your research. We’d love to see how we can help you have a greater impact with your big ideas.

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