ABOUT

Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) is a partnership between the Universities of Sussex and Brighton together with NHS organisations. BSMS offer both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Feedback from the National Student Survey demonstrating an exceptionally high level of student satisfaction, with BSMS students consistently returning overall satisfaction rates above 95%.

Sigma’s relationship with BSMS started with a lean multidisciplinary workshop covering a range of exploratory ground from initial content to information architecture and design. It soon became apparent that there was an established narrative we could encapsulate in a fluid and immersive experience for the user. The narrative broadly followed a linear flow for the two key areas BSMS were looking to increase conversion, namely their undergraduate and postgraduate pages. A typical flow was… Why choose BSMS? > About the course > Applying to BSMS > Fees and finances > Supporting your learning > Open Days > Expect a warm welcome > Life at BSMS > Our 2015 prospectus
Drawing on lessons learned from Sigma’s work on the University of Brighton website where a sticky horizontal tabbed navigation resulted in occasional unwanted wrapping, a vertical left hand side navigation was proposed. This would insure greater flexibility to accommodate fluctuating content levels and expansion in the future. Greater width availability also meant more consistent instances of single line entries. In addition to scrolling, the sticky left hand side navigation acts as a supplementary method for the user to work their way down the page. The result is a robust, pleasingly visual way to clearly interact with the content.

Industry centred colour ways, high end stock photography, fitting Google font selection and a narrow typestyle hierarchy all work together to result in a slick, professional look and feel. Appropriate imagery, well posed copy and tone of voice insure the overall experience is both friendly and approachable.

We adopted a fairly lean, budget appropriate, development process for the project. Rough design workshop layouts were followed by a couple of fully artworked visuals, to establish broader look and feel, before the remaining first iteration of flat designs were created. All templates were still worked up to flat designs to ensure our main client contact, whose role responsibilities were split, had a clear visual understanding of the proposed interface before moving on to HTML and handing over to the client for development.

This was Sigma’s second large scale web project partnering with Brighton University and hope to see continued involvement moving into new projects in the future.