Redbridge housing management systems go beyond discovery

In our first blog post, we shared the news that we were working towards creating a better user experience on our existing housing management system. Throughout November and December 2021, we went through a discovery journey with Redbridge Housing and Customer Service Officers to gain insights into their current user journey with the Northgate housing management system and to identify various obstacles within the tasks involved, predominately in the change of tenancy processes.

We facilitated a series of workshops and interviews as part of our research which allowed us to map out the ‘as-is processes’ with the Housing and Customer Service Officers. Their valuable input helped us to identify and assess areas of the user experience which required improvements.

Moving forward into the alpha phase (the first phase of software testing), low code platforms will be used as alternatives to various areas of a housing management system and to gain further understanding of what our users need.

Amido have been appointed as our design partner to help assist with exploring these possibilities. They are currently designing prototypes which will provide visual insights into how a new system may look and function. Amido were previously working on a tenancy management process with Hackney Council and come equipped with a wealth of experience in this area.

Collaborating with Amido in joint sprints, ‘as-is’ processes and ‘to-be’ processes are currently being mapped out with emphasis on service design, which is in conjunction with prototyping the potential user interface and user experience. This will be tested against the insights and hypothesis from our discovery phase and we will achieve this by conducting usability testing and additional user research with the Redbridge Housing and Customer Service Officers.

This will then provide the opportunity to work closely with the three low code platform providers who have been appointed by Redbridge to implement these patterns.

Rapid is a fully open-source platform primarily aimed at developers, used by nine councils, predominantly for social housing applications. Netcall's Liberty Create is currently in use at 14 local authorities and is a proprietary platform. Placecube's Digital Place is also open source and built on top of the Liferay open-source project, used by 10 councils.

We are hopeful that beyond this alpha phase we will be able to move into software development phase. Our next show and tell is on Wednesday 9 February at 11am. We are also interested in bringing additional councils on as partners, so please get in touch either on Twitter @lbrdigitalvoice or email tom.harrison@redbridge.gov.uk 

Update 3 March 2022

Watch a recording of our second Show and Tell.

Show and tell slides from 9 February 2022 (PDF 1MB)