causeway irish housing association
Reinvigorating the digital presence of a UK non-profit while significantly reducing its carbon footprint.
Year: 2022
Project Overview
Founded in 1986, Causeway are a specialist housing association and Community Benefits Society providing homes, a community and support for single homeless people in London. They are also immensely proud to be the largest provider of LGBT supported housing in the UK.
Causeway reached out to me to create a new, more accessible website that would better illustrate the passion they have for their work and the people they do it for. A top priority was to make the site easy to navigate so their tenants could find all the important information needed.
Deliverables
- Responsive web design
- Sustainable/accessible UX
- Bespoke directory
Client background
Causeway were originally founded to provide low-cost shared housing to young Irish people seeking work in London. Today, in keeping with their migrant roots, they house and support young asylum seekers. They also work with people who may encounter problems in mainstream homeless provision due to their sexual or gender identity, or those who have stated a preference to live in an LGBT specific service.
They have staff trained in trauma and onsite support for people with higher needs. Supporting people to sustain their tenancies and live happy and productive lives. Encouraging tenants to be proactive in shaping their own future while recognising that this will require some support from time to time.
It was an honour to learn about Causeway, their staff and tenants, and to create a website to platform the amazing work they do.
The Brief
Causeway’s previous website was out of date and as a result they were unable to add or update new content themselves. Because of this the information on the site was also out of date which meant people were unable to see the scope of the amazing work they do. The homepage and navigation needed to be streamlined as there was a lot of deep diving to find crucial information.
The team requested a brand new site that would better represent who they are and what they do. It needed to be easy for them to update and be easily accessible for their tenants. They also wanted a Lifeskills Directory to signpost tenants to crucial links and services, and a team page introducing their accomplished and expanding team.
The Process & Solution
With input from the team at Causeway, I designed a more up to date site, incorperating a bit more colour and some people focused images. This showcased the passion and life within Causeway’s community without undermining the importance of their work.
The new homepage design makes the organisation’s purpose immediately clear. I restructured the navigation to make it easier to find further information – especially for tenants.
As many of the users accessing the site may have data limits etc. the design needed to be low bandwidth without compromising on quality. We achieved this compromising on the client’s request for more images by compressing and converting to WebP. The site was fully optimised for performance, minimising CSS and JavaScript.
The Lifeskills Directory contained quite a high number of links within different categories so we worked closely with Causeway’s Administrator who together with the Lifeskills team created an Excel sheet from which our bespoke plugin will pull data as the directory expands.
The end result is a faster, more accessible, people-friendly site that is easier for their team and tenants to use. The Causeway team are now able to update content themselves and have also signed up as regular clients to my monthly maintenance package.
4x
Times faster than previous site
0.15g
of CO2 per page view
90%
Lighthouse performance score
Kind Words from Causeway Irish Housing Association
Clare Mullaniff, Business Support Manager
“We worked with JR for a complete redesign and redevelopment of our website. From start to finish she was friendly, professional, and always there to advise and help. Our organisation is London based so everything was communicated via video calls and emails, and this worked perfectly. We are thrilled to have found JR and look forward to being one of her regular clients.“