Website Design and Development Services

Website Design and Development Services to design, develop and launch a modern, accessible and user-friendly and easily maintainable website to serve HACG residents, applicants, partners and the community.
- The final product must achieve strict ADA/Section 508 compliance and utilize a flexible Content Management System (CMS) for easy internal maintenance
1. Discovery, Research & Housing Strategy
• Stakeholder Engagement: Conduct workshops with HACG leadership, housing specialists, and community advocates to align on organizational goals.
• Audience Persona Mapping: Establish custom user journeys for distinct audiences: Low-Income Public Housing applicants, Housing Choice Voucher (HCV/Section 8) participants, property landlords, and real estate developers.
• Language & Translation Strategy: Architect a multi-language framework (e.g., integrating native translation or automated tools) to serve non-English speaking constituents.
• Content & Document Audit: Evaluate existing site assets, focusing on hightraffic PDF application forms, compliance documents, and administrative plans that need digital conversion.
2. Information Architecture (IA) & UX Design
• Constituent-Centric Navigation: Create a simplified, intuitive sitemap separating "Find Housing," "Current Residents," and "Landlord Partner" pathways.
• Accessible Wireframing: Build structural page blueprints focusing on clear typography, large touch targets, and cognitive readability for low-literacy users.
• Interactive Prototyping: Deliver clickable, low-fidelity mockups of interactive portals and tools to test ease-of-use before writing code.
3. Visual UI Design & Brand Trust
• Inclusive Visual System: Design an authoritative, clean design system with accessible typography, optimized contrast ratios, and clear focus states.
• Responsive Interfaces: Ensure 100% visual fidelity and full interactive usability across mobile phones, low-cost tablets, and desktop computers.
• Dynamic Component States: UI patterns for hover, focus, error, and active states tailored to guide users seamlessly through complex tasks.
4. Interactive HACG Tool Engineering
• Interactive Program Wizard: An interactive, step-by-step questionnaire (e.g., "Am I Eligible?") helping applicants quickly identify open waitlists and voucher criteria.
• Predictive Smart Search: A site-wide search engine featuring auto-suggested terms, synonym matching (e.g., "Section 8" matching "HCV"), and filtered results categorized by user type.
• Dynamic Waitlist & Status Tracker: A secure interface where applicants can check if waitlists are open, closed, or opening soon, with real-time status alerts.
• Interactive Affordable Housing & Property Map: A geolocated map tool integrated with the CMS allowing users to filter HACG properties by neighborhood, bedroom count, or amenity type.
• Payment & Utility Calculators: Interactive calculators enabling residents to estimate rent portions or landlords to check maximum allowable payment standards.
• Centralized Event Calendar: A filterable calendar system managing board meetings, resident council gatherings, and landlord briefings, with "add to calendar" and automated reminder functions.
• Filterable Resource & Policy Directory: A clean repository for standard operating procedures (SOPs), procurement RFPs, and resident forms, searchable by keyword, department, or topic.
• Landlord & Tenant Portal Gateways: Secure, intuitive pathways linking smoothly to external third-party software (e.g., Yardi, RealPage, Emphasys, or HMS) using clear single-sign-on (SSO) interfaces or custom link outs.
5. CMS Architecture & Development
• Enterprise CMS Platform: Develop on a robust, user-friendly CMS (such as WordPress or Drupal) configured specifically for public sector security and stability.
• No-Code Visual Editor: Customize the backend admin panel so non-technical PHA staff can easily edit alerts, manage waitlist statuses, and publish documents.
• Role-Based Workflow Management: Establish user permissions and approval tiers (e.g., Contributor, Editor, Admin) to safeguard site modifications.
• Security & Performance Tuning: Implement advanced firewalls, automated malware scanning, SSL encryption, and aggressive page-caching to handle heavy traffic spikes during waitlist openings.