During a training session at the On Think Tanks School in Barcelona this past February, one remark stuck with us: “For most people, your website is your think tank.”
It wasn’t said for effect. It was just a fact. And once we heard it, we couldn’t unhear it.
A website, we understood, is not just an archive or a newsfeed. It’s your public face, your digital headquarters. Often it is the only way a policymaker, funder, student, or journalist will encounter your work.
Perhaps without fully understanding it at the time, this was the logic that drove our decision last year to rebuild the website for CAPS Unlock, a Central Asian policy-focused think tank based in Kazakhstan.
To begin with, we thought this would be a design refresh. In reality, it became a strategic reset; a full rethink of how we present ourselves to the world.
Our original site was built quickly, with free tools and little structure, during a transitional time for our organisation. Back then, CAPS Unlock was still emerging from its roots in the Soros Foundation–Kazakhstan. We were still defining our direction, and our website reflected that uncertainty. It was functional, but bare bones: an online business card.
As we became a fully independent organisation, with new priorities and international partnerships, the site no longer reflected who we were. It risked making us appear less credible than we had become. We had simply outgrown it.
The redesign began with internal reflection. A website redesign forces you to answer difficult questions: Who is your audience? What should they find when they land on your homepage? How should the structure support your mission? These are not questions of design, they’re questions of identity.
We underestimated how long this would take. We’d planned for a one-month sprint. It ended up taking three months. That was no bad thing. As the work progressed, rigid technical specifications gave way to a more adaptive process. Just like in research, new ideas emerged halfway through. We added features, shifted priorities, and reimagined the layout more than once. The project became iterative, creative, and surprisingly energising.
We also learned the importance of choosing the right design partners. We started our search in Kazakhstan but found few designers with experience working on policy-oriented or nonprofit websites. Eventually, we partnered with Artilab, a team based in Ukraine. They understood our mission, brought deep UX experience, and were responsive to our needs as a think tank. Working remotely introduced some logistical complexity, but the collaboration was ultimately a strong match.
The project was never simply outsourced. Internally, it was an all-hands effort. Within the CAPS Unlock team, we (meaning Tlegen Kuandykov, program coordinator, and Peter Leonard, director of communications) coordinated on the site’s structure, functional requirements, and content. Alexander Veselov, our IT specialist, managed the technical implementation. This core group worked closely with colleagues across the organisation. A think tank’s website should reflect the voice of the whole team. You cannot outsource your identity.
One thing that helped was our early investment in brand development. We already had a visual identity (ie, fonts, colour palette, and tone), which made it easier to ensure visual coherence and saved time during the design process. The final product looks clean, deliberate, and consistent with our mission.
Accessibility became one of our highest priorities. It will be one of our biggest challenges moving forward. Our region is multilingual. Russian remains the lingua franca, but our audiences also speak Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen. English is essential for international engagement. We knew from the outset that automatic translation wouldn’t be enough. To be truly accessible, content needs to feel native in every language. That’s a long-term goal we’re still working toward.
Budget, too, proved tricky. As the scope of the project evolved, so did the cost. That was frustrating, but we knew quality had to come first. Fortunately, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom stepped in to help cover additional expenses. Without their support, we would have had to make compromises.
Before launching the site, we approached testing with the same care as development. We checked how the site functioned across browsers, mobile devices, and language versions. We gathered feedback, made adjustments, fixed bugs, and smoothed rough edges. This phase was not always exciting, to put it mildly, but it was vital.
What began as a visual update became something much more ambitious: a chance to bring our public presence into alignment with who we are and what we stand for. The result is more than a better-looking website. It’s a clearer reflection of our identity and a more effective platform for reaching the audiences we care about.
The site is now live. But the work isn’t finished. We no longer think of the site as something to launch and leave behind, but as a growing part of how we work. Just like our organisation, the website will keep evolving.
And that’s exactly how it should be.