„Your Education. Our Mission."
The Faculty of Medicine,
Dentistry and
Pharmacy are operating as part of the internationally recognized
University of Szeged. The university has a rich tradition: its predecessor was established in Kolozsvár, in 1581 and in 1921 the institution moved to Szeged. However, the university has plenty of magnificent researchers; Albert Szent-Györgyi was an outstanding figure of the institution. He was the only Hungarian Nobel Prize-winner who achieved this acknowledgement for his researches carried out in Hungary. He was the one, who managed to isolate vitamin C for the first time, for which he was given the Nobel Prize in 1936. The research was carried out in Szeged. The internationally approved high-quality education of the medical studies in foreign language has been present in Szeged since 1985. Today, the foreign language education is not only available for the students of the Faculty of Medicine but also for the Faculty of Dentistry and the Faculty of Pharmacy. These programs are available in English and in German too. During the semester 2015/2016 these faculties had more than 900 active students, from 60 different countries. Our task was to prepare a material as an international promotion of the foreign language programs through which the future foreign students can familiarize themselves not only with the history and traditions of the University of Szeged, but also with the aforementioned faculties. The website introduces the faculty, its curriculum, student life, and last, but not least: students can get to know Szeged, the city of sunshine.
From the first step till the last
The plan was to create an overall material, which represents as much information about the qualifications, the facilities, and university life as possible, in order to convince students to choose the University of Szeged. By designing the website, we targeted those, who want to continue their higher education in Europe, more specifically in Hungary. First of all we drafted a highly informative website, to make so that a future student will be able to find any information they look for in the shortest possible time. So, we didn't only prepare videos, but we ordered a currently active university student for each menu buttons who speaks about the most important information that can be found under the chosen option. We believe that this is what makes the page accurate and appealing. Furthermore, we created unique icons and illustrations, and with the font and the colors of the design we provided an integrated appearance both for the videos and for the website.
As a result of planning and designing, the 6 videos we created play their roles as part of the website and can also be used separately. We also paid special attention to the videos presenting the city itself and the one which represents the lives of foreign students. In these videos we involved some active students of the University: they are the ones who appear on the screen and speak in the voice covers. We believe that this is the most authentic way to introduce the University of Szeged, the training, the city and the cultural diversity that greets the freshmen in Szeged. In the video all the 3 faculties of medicine are present: the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Dentistry and the Faculty of Pharmacy. We enlisted the wide choice of cultural-, and sport facilities as well. We integrated the icons above in the video, emphasizing the most important data in short descriptions.
The technical specialty of the site is that we prepared a green screen video for each menu button, in which an active university student speaks about the most significant points of that part of the menu. We also paid attention to the appearance of our characters, which also contributes to originality: they are wearing T-shirt with university logos and a gown at the studio shooting. This is the reason why the student walking into the picture at the menu button of graduation wears a gown.
While we developed the website, we aimed at creating an easy navigation. While designing the layout of the menu, our conception was to create a unique illustration for all the 11 menu buttons: they enter from the right side of the page after the menu bar shows up. The menu-bar resembles a timeline: we created illustrations representing the content.
When we prepared the graphic design, we paid special attention to the visual perception. Our aim was to organize the page’s content in graphic units to provide an access to information about the program or about the city. Owing to these graphic units, the result rather looks like a presentation, than a website. We ordered an opening image for each of the menu buttons, and, by scrolling down the page; full screen pictures, data, galleries, videos, and photos vary. The application page is available from the menu and from the footer.
The website is built up of segments, which show the most important stages in a student’s life, from the beginning of the training, until graduation. We prepared the website using HTML5 videos, so that these work in any modern browsers; the videos mute when scrolling down the page or opening the menu. Instead of using the usual .jpg or .png formats, we used SVG icons on the website, so the pictures are sharp on each device they are opened. In order to fulfil the demands of the target group, we had to find a technical solution for providing a satisfying experience on each platform. For this reason, we created the site to be responsive, plus we added a retina ready function as well. The website recognizes the platform on which the page is viewed, and adapts to it. We aimed at reducing the size of the downloadable data, so on the mobile version, we chose to hide the video itself, and we only included the narration.
Result
The Virtual Open Day introducing the medical studies at the University of Szeged is one of our most interesting works. Through the project we could realize the opportunities, and manifest our ideas. In our opinion, this project will be acknowledged internationally, and we are happy that we could contribute to the University of Szeged’s faculties of medicine to welcome even more foreign students in the future.