Leeds Federated Housing Association
Leeds Federated Housing Association was officially established in 1975 to provide safe, affordable housing. Today it offers around 5,000 homes to rent and buy across Leeds, Wakefield, Kirklees and North Yorkshire.
The challenge
Leeds Federated serves two distinct customer groups with different expectations of the website. Current tenants need easy-to-find information about rent payments, home maintenance, and anti-social behaviour. Prospective tenants and buyers want to explore available housing and review details of homes for sale.
Their previous website was poorly structured and difficult to navigate, making it hard for customers to find relevant resources and time-consuming for Leeds Federated to maintain independently.
The solution
The project began with an eight-week planning phase during which we consulted with site owners to create clear top-level information architecture. This provided distinct entry points for each customer group and user journeys aligned to their needs.
We designed a new ‘Current Developments’ page to function like a property portal, allowing customers to search, view, and enquire about specific homes. In the anti-social behaviour menu, we introduced an A-Z glossary that filters results dynamically to help people report appropriately while maintaining fast loading speeds.
We worked within Leeds Federated’s existing brand guidelines but applied them in a more visually engaging way to strengthen their brand identity and make the website more memorable.
The results
- The restructured website makes it quicker and easier for customers to find information, no matter what their situation or starting point.
- Improved enquiry routing through topic-led contact forms gives the contact centre clearer oversight of incoming enquiries, with positive feedback from the team.
- The new website serves customer groups with diverse needs while still delivering a consistent, connected experience.
Castlegate have been great to work with. They helped us think about what content matters most to the customer and what a successful journey through the website would look like. There were a few complexities to work through when building a website of this size and Castlegate came up with innovative solutions that work for website visitors on the front end, as well as our website editors on the back end.
Cat Thomas
Brand & Communications Manager
Visit: www.lfha.co.uk
