New Genesis Housing Association website puts users first

The new Genesis Housing Association website launched last Wednesday with dramatically improved user experiences for tenants of the housing association, who were heavily involved in its design.

One of the UK’s leading housing associations, Genesis Housing owns or manages around 33,000 homes across London and the east of England. It provides homes for around 100,000 people. With such a large number of users looking to access information on their tenancies and request repairs, it’s vital that the website makes the process easy and fast.

Designed with users, for users

Starting in early May, the process of designing the new Genesis Housing website began with a user research stage where customers of the housing association were consulted through workshops and one-to-one interviews. The aim was to design a site which would meet the needs of these users as efficiently as possible.

The organisation’s website was heavily populated with content but, because the site had grown organically over time, this content was often hard for users to find. Manifesto used insights from user research to redesign the site’s information architecture, and worked closely with Genesis Housing digital team to help editors prepare content for the new site.

Conversational interface helps tenants request repairs and reduces stress on contact centre

An innovative new feature for requesting repairs uses a conversational interface to help guide tenants towards the actions that will get them help fastest. Condensing thousands of decision tree options down into a simple conversation with a human-like assistant, the ‘report a repair’ feature mirrors the experience of the contact center to help tenants get fast access to the information they need.

It is expected that the new tool will improve the efficiency of the contact centre and reduce customer waiting time.

Accessibility as a priority

With such a diversity of users to cater for, it was crucial that the new site was accessible from any device. Designed to deliver a fast, convenient user experience on mobiles, tablets and desktop computers, the site has also been extensively tested for accessibility, ensuring that people making use of screen readers and magnifiers experience the same level of service.

Laying foundations for superior digital experiences

Built in just 11 weeks on Drupal 8, the new site marks the first phase of Genesis Housing and Manifesto’s efforts to deliver superlative digital experiences for the housing association’s customers.