As part of our project to rebrand Merseyside-based registered housing provider First Ark Group as Livv Housing Group, we designed, built and launched a completely new website and intranet. This involved condensing six previously separate sites into a single new home for the whole group, plus a simplified platform for employees with social media style functions to keep people up to date with everything across the business.
The client set clear objectives for the site, to:
The Group’s new brand identity was signed off in mid-January 2020, from when we had just 11 weeks to complete the website. To meet this timeframe we compressed the scoping, specification, concepts, wireframes, design, development and testing stages to allow different aspects to run concurrently. This enabled us to take a modular approach to build and release the site in phases, which gave Livv the flexibility to amend the structure and functionality even as pages were being populated and tested.
Despite the unexpected impact pf the coronavirus pandemic, the Livv brand, website and intranet all went live right on schedule on 1 April 2020. The new site is strongly customer-facing with prominent and easy- to-use tools for all core services and support, including live chat. The client has total control over content and format via the WordPress content management system, for which we also offered staff coaching.
Feedback from users was very positive – residents said they liked the crisp, colourful design, clear navigation and simple, friendly messaging. The new site’s impact also showed up in a much-reduced bounce rate (down from 87.86% to 48.17%), pages viewed per session (up from 1.18 to 2.91) and the average time users spent per visit.
The improved intranet has helped Livv gain two national awards: HR Excellence Awards Best Employee Engagement Strategy 2020, and Highly Commended for Best Intranet in the Internal Communications and Engagement Awards 2021.