Housing New Zealand

Housing New Zealand Corporation (HNZC) is a Crown entity established by the New Zealand government in 1974 to assists in meeting a number of social objectives through housing policy. These objectives relate to the provision of housing and housing services for low-income households. A core objective of the Corporation is to provide access to affordable good quality housing to those in the greatest need. To this end HNZC provides a number of services including offering income-related rental properties to low-income families, whereby households pay no more than 25% of their total household income in rent. The corporation can also provide assistance to families looking to buy or build their own homes who have not been able to gain finance. Housing services are also provided to various community groups such as organizations that provide housing for the intellectually disabled.

URL - www.hnzc.co.nz

Challenge

HNZC was experiencing a variety of compounding problems with their existing intranet site. Staff couldn’t find critical information, it was inefficient to maintain and ineffective as a communication tool.

In late 2003, HNZC commissioned Straker partner Shift to redevelop the site's information architecture and redesign the user interfaces. The new structure needed to present large volumes of policy documents, forms, and personnel information in a way that was easy for users with varying IT abilities to navigate.

HNZC specifically did not want their site to mimic other government agencies. It was also very important that the intranet transcended the national offices to reflect the goals and activities of the entire organization.

Solution

Shado CMS Content Management System.

Results

The site's appearance has an inviting sense of familiarity. Handwritten notations are used throughout the design to indicate that what you find on the Intranet is not "set in stone", it is a working document and everyone is encouraged to provide input.

The handover of the designed HTML templates to HNZC and their technical partner, ZeroOne, marked the end of a fulfilling and successful project for Shift.