Client Profile: King County Housing Authority
Client
The King County Housing Authority (KCHA) connects more than 40,000 residents with affordable housing options. KCHA asked Metric Media in collaboration with Gehl Design to develop and build a website to serve the needs of the KCHA and its varied clients, including tenants, landlords, human service agencies, contractors, vendors, and KCHA staff.
Task
At Metric Media, we worked closely with the design firm to create a comprehensive website for KCHA providing a wide variety of options and services to better serve its users.
- Determined key stakeholder needs through 20+ hours of interviews with representatives of various KCHA clients to ensure that the many needs of this diverse group of stakeholders were met.
- Designed specific access levels so that each KCHA department can administer their own content.
- Built interactive maps to help potential residents find housing options.
- Created a rental posting form that enables private landlords to advertise properties as part of the Section 8 housing voucher program.
- Generated a housing voucher online application process that accepts 5,000+ responses in a week, and securely collects sensitive information such as SSN and income data. (This new process received 1,500 applications in the first few hours of the site launch!)
- Designed a diverse content management system to serve the needs of multiple users in multiple departments in multiple physical locations.
- Developed RFP (Request for Proposal) posting tools that give KCHA a more affordable alternative to posting jobs in local publications.
- Produced a “crisis” version of the website to quickly distribute critical information in the event of a disaster or emergency.
- Installed ongoing site usage statistic tool to keep KCHA in the know about how clients are using their services.
Result
The King County Housing Authority now has a website that is more user-friendly for all necessary clients, both internal and external. With these new developments and improvements, KCHA and its many clients can work together more effectively to make sure everyone in King County has a place to live.