Zefat Academic College

A college in the heart of Zefat’s old city

UX/UI

01

UX/UI

Zefat Academic College App

The stone buildings that make up the Zefat Academic College are scattered throughout Zefat’s picturesque Old City. With no public space between them and no central location for the 3,000 students to congregate, socialize, learn about upcoming events, or just relax, this urban institution lacks the campus feel.
The Zefat Academic College team contacted us to design an app that would concentrate the needs of the students in an easy-to-use location, and, indirectly, provide a virtual community space.

We started with an in-depth study

The study combined two complementary research methods:

(1) We distributed a student questionnaire that focused on the school day routine and the social fabric of the college.

(2) We conducted in-depth personal interviews with the students, that opened the floodgates of needs we hadn’t even considered. One important issue that came up was the need for a friendly class schedule interface.

From the results we gathered, we developed 5 personas to represent the diverse student population at Zefat. At the same time, we delved into the analytics on the college’s website to identify the useful, relevant information we wanted to include in the app.

We characterized the app

We created various scenarios to help us understand how the app would be used. We realized that it was a necessity that the large amount of content be organized in such a way that users (students, faculty, administration) could find everything easily. We proposed a structure based on three main screens:

(1) A personal area for students that includes a message box, grades, class schedule, and more. (2) A community screen with bulletin boards, event postings, college information, and a library. (3) A central screen that combines the events from the personal class schedule with cultural events and lectures, which students are invited to attend.

We added a floating action button for quick actions.

From wireframes to designed screens

At the end of the characterization process, we started the design work. We followed the College’s bright, cheerful color pallet to bring areas of the app to life, to differentiate topics, and to add visual interest. Each app screen now has a unique design and related, tailored content. More importantly, the app structure serves the multiple uses — and users — well.