Project Overview
Client: The Kinneret Academic College
Website link: do.kinneret.ac.il
Role: UX/UI Designer
Timeline: December 2025 – Feb 2026
My Responsibilities:
Wireframing key pages
UI design
Component design
Developer handoff
Design QA
The Challenge
Kinneret Academic College is a higher education institution offering a wide range of academic programs, particularly in engineering and applied sciences. Leveraging its location near the Sea of Galilee, the college provides practical, hands-on training alongside academic study. Its website serves as a central hub for prospective and current students, staff, partners, and international audiences.
The college wanted to modernize its website to better serve both current and prospective students. The existing site had usability issues, an outdated design, and did not clearly present key information for prospective students, making it difficult for them to find programs, enrollment steps, and other important details.
Key Problems
Limited Multi-Platform Usability
The website was not built with a mobile-first approach and performs poorly on mobile
Ineffective Program Search
Lack of centralized search for academic programs, making it hard for users to find desired programs
Poor registration workflows
Providing little guidance for prospective students, making it difficult to complete applications efficiently
Outdated Visual Design
The website’s look and feel were outdated, with inconsistent branding
A glimpse of the old website design
Research & Analysis
The brief provided by the college outlined their goals, but didn’t give enough insight into the actual needs of the users. To fill this gap, I conducted user interviews and competitive analysis to better understand how current and prospective students interact with the website and what they struggle with.
User Interviews
I conducted phone interviews with multiple students and prospective applicants, including individuals who began the registration process but did not complete it.
The goal was to understand their motivations, decision-making process, and website experience, and identify obstacles preventing enrollment.
Sample Interview Questions:
-
Personal Information: Age, location, interests, field of study or programs of interest
-
How they first heard about Kinneret College (website, social media, ads, friends/family, other)
-
Where they started looking for study options (Google, college website, social media, education advisor)
-
When they began researching, did they already know what to study or were they exploring general directions?
-
Did the website help them understand the benefits of Kinneret College?
-
Which pages or sections were most useful?
-
Did the website feel up-to-date or outdated?
-
Was it easy as a new student to navigate, or confusing for beginners?
-
Did they reach out via other channels (phone, WhatsApp, study advisor)?
-
What would they change first on the website or registration process?
-
Does the website give a full picture of college life (dorms, extracurricular activities, logistics, campus options)?
-
What helps prospective students decide to enroll?
-
For those who didn’t register: When in the process did they lose interest or feel frustrated?
Interview Findings:
Program details were available online, but guidance on career outcomes and industry advantages was limited
The website alone was not always sufficient to influence registration; personal interactions often played a larger role
The website did not give a full view of college life, such as dorms, extracurricular activities, and campus logistics
Students suggested improvements:
-
Highlight registration and key actions clearly
-
Provide more career-oriented program information
-
Offer a more complete picture of college life and campus logistics
Competitive Analysis
I analyzed competitor academic institutions—primarily Northern Israeli colleges offering similar degrees, along with indirect competitors—to inform navigation and content structure, mapping common layouts and identifying effective navigation patterns.
Defining Users Through Personas
To better understand the needs of prospective students, I created personas from user research, highlighting goals, pain points, and behaviors in program exploration and enrollment.
User Journey Mapping
Based on user insights, I mapped user journeys—including successful registrations and abandoned processes—to identify drop-off points and enhance engagement with clearer calls-to-action and content that was missing or underemphasized on the existing website.
Information & Page Structure
The project was split into two sprints: first, a minisite for prospective students and the open house, followed by the redesign of the rest of the website. Based on the client’s brief and insights from user research, I outlined the overall site structure to make information easier to find and navigation more intuitive for users.
Wireframing
I created wireframes for the website’s key pages, covering both desktop and mobile layouts. These wireframes provided the foundation for the redesign, establishing a clear visual hierarchy, logical structure, and functional layout to guide users through the site effectively.
Program page
Home page
Department page
Program page
UI Design
After client approval, I moved into high-fidelity UI design, applying the college’s new brand guidelines, including logo, colors, typography, and visual elements to deliver a cohesive and modern website that both reflects Kinneret College’s refreshed identity and ensures an intuitive user experience.
Before → After
.png)
Mobile Design
As part of the project’s main goals, I created responsive layouts for mobile devices, ensuring that each page was fully functional, visually consistent, and provided an intuitive user experience across all screen sizes, without reducing or compromising any the content or features from the desktop version.
Development Collaboration
Throughout the implementation process, I collaborated closely with the development team to clarify interactions and ensure that the high-fidelity designs were accurately translated into a functional product. Before handing off the designs, I reviewed all assets and specifications with the developers to ensure alignment. I also conducted design QA, both before and after the site went live, comparing the implementation against the designs and providing actionable feedback to address any discrepancies.
Final Design
The redesigned website introduced a modern visual identity and improved the presentation of complex academic content.
.png)