Ifat Keinan
senior lecturer
Senior Lecturer and Design Researcher
Senior Lecturer and Design Researcher. PhD candidate at the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences at the University of Haifa.
Her research focuses on Inclusive Design and Participatory Design processes as a foundation for developing accessible practices and advancing health-related processes through design.
Her work is grounded in applied, field-based methodologies developed through years of collaboration with patients and healthcare professionals in medical institutions. In this context, she leads and facilitates co-design workshops and experiential learning processes that promote innovation within healthcare, social, and cultural contexts
Keinan, I., Nir, B., Adani, R., & Ventura, J. (2025). You always have to improvise: Physiotherapists’ perceptions of the use of objects they designed in therapeutic settings. Design for Health, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/24735132.2025.2561291
Ventura, J., Adani, R., & Keinan, I. (2021). Improvising change: Adaptation, improvisation, and innovation in healthcare design. The International Journal of Design in Society, 15(2), 73
Ventura, J., Keinan-Guy, I. & Adani, R. (2019). Material Content Analysis: Analysing Improvisational Healthcare Design. SAGE Research Methods Cases (SAGE publications)
Ventura, J. and Keinan-Guy, I. (2018). Shadowing as a Central Research Method in Medical Design Anthropology. SAGE Research Methods Cases (SAGE publications)
Ventura, J. and Keinan-Guy, I. (2018). Design and Ageing at the Bloomsbury Design Library (Bloomsbury).
Participatory design methodologies
Inclusive design
Healthcare design
Design in rehabilitation contexts
Applied research in design
Ethics in design research
2024-present
Participation and Involvement of Children with ASD in Visual Impairment Diagnosis and Treatment: A multidisciplinary research project focusing on children with high-functioning autism in eye-care settings. In collaboration with Dr. Ayelet Noam-Rosenthal, Dr. Liat Gantz, Dr. Shani Oppenheim-Weller, Liran Elbaz Bloch, and Avi Faibish
Funded by the Margolis Foundation (2025)
2015-present
Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital: A series of theoretical and practical studies aimed at advancing rehabilitative processes through design. Applied research examining environmental and object-based interventions in rehabilitation
2008-2009
Bezalel Labs: Member of an interdisciplinary team examining linguistic and cultural barriers in the communication between therapists and patients. Conducted within a research framework led by Prof. Yaara Bar-On, in collaboration with Ra'eut Stern, Dr. Michal Shuster, and Dr. Yossefa Sartiel.
