The Client
MSV (Mosscare St Vincent’s Housing Group) is a long-standing diverse housing group, formed from the merger of two associations in Manchester - Mosscare Housing and St Vincent’s Housing. They work nationally, regionally and with a local focus across Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
They are a community anchor in many neighbourhoods across the region, a proud member of Placeshapers and a key partner in Greater Manchester with the GM Housing Providers and other partners.
As an organisation they take great pride in providing social housing and associated services “with a heart”.
The Challenge
Create a new website that updated and modernised MSV’s online presence whilst retaining the existing brand identity and remaining true to their organisation values. The new website needed, where possible, to encourage visitors to use self-service channels and an updated MSV Account facility through which customers can manage their account with MSV.
Adding to the overall complexity of the project was the introduction of the first national lockdown for Covid 19 and the move for all MSV staff to work from home. Traditional ways of working changed overnight and the entire project was forced to operate remotely.
The Solution
Using Umbraco 8 as the basis for the website delivered the range of control over content management and user access required by the project team, whilst offering a powerful yet easy to use administration interface. The discovery element of the project included reviews of peer organisations as well as a selection of websites from other industry sectors, each one identified because of a key technical feature or design concept.
The planning element of the project included the development of concepts for user journey, mood boards, wireframes, navigation types, and mock ups of the website’s main pages before a move to a full design stage. A focus on mobile design and user experience was a key element and reflected user traffic evidence as well as focus groups and user input.
Existing branding elements influenced the design element of the project and user focus groups provided valuable feedback on all aspects of the project.
The development element and user testing were managed in close liaison with the MSV project team as well as external Penetration testing of the development site. Integration to MSV core networks exists to simplify and secure transfer of customer data.
The finished project is hosted and supported by Emerald’s hosting partner Secura.
