A sleek new look. User-friendly interface. And online registration and logins. When the Univesity of Stellenbosch has the honour of hosting the world’s foremost experts on crystallography at a distinguished international conferencing event rotating to Stellenbosch, they asked Swey to handle the web development.

Past ECS events had a reputation for having an extremely outdated online presence, with websites that were many years behind in terms of look and functionality. So Stellenbosch brought in Swey to show the world that SA is a leader with a new-look website.

ECS 5 WEBSITE

Every year, the European Crystallographic Association and the International Union of Crystallography hosts a prestigious international event that includes lectures and a conference around the science of crystallography (and experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids). It’s called the European Crystallography School (ECS), and when Stellenbosch Univesity, along with the South African Crystallographic Society, was named the hosts, South Africa got extremely excited.

The ECS is hosted in a different country every year, and each country’s host creates it’s own website and marketing. And this was the first time it would come to SA, so everyone wanted to make a huge impact.

Now, being such a very niche event – it’s mainly for the professors, scientists and students specifically interested in crystallography – none of the previous host countries really paid too much attention to the web development and online marketing. And that is where SA would be different, we’d have an awesome website.

WHEN DID SWEY DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN THE SITE?

Stellenboach University hosted the 5th ECS in July 2019. So most of the development and maintenance work on the new site occurred in early 2019. And it was so successful that it seems to have inspired the next hosts, Budapest, to follow suit with a similarly sleek, modern site.

WHAT DID SWEY DO EXACTLY?

The proof is in the pudding here. You can actually see the difference if you take a look at one of the previous years’ websites here: ECS 4, with its outdated look and functionality. And then compare it to the new site Swey created for the 5th edition at Stellenbosch here: ECS 5.

It’s a world of difference. And here Swey updated the style and feel of the website – larger images, mobile-friendly design, as well as a more user-friendly (UX) approach, especially with the interactive programme and visual list of lecturers. It all makes for a much more pleasant experience.

But there’s also a lot of serious technical add-ons: Swey introduced the online registration and login for the first time in ECS history, as well as an e-commerce element, where guests could pay online via the portal. 

It was a huge success and, as previously mentioned, helped Stellenbosch University set the trend for the online presence of all future ECS conferences.

Need a fast, experienced and efficient agency on your side? Contact Swey.

CLIENT: STELLENBOSCH UNVERSITY

Stellenbosch, South Africa

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Also see the superior web development work Swey did for the Cape Agulhas-region hotel, The Dunes at Arniston.