London Borough of Hackney

Hackney Welcome Service

The challenge

Hackney is changing fast. The pace of economic and population growth, Hackney’s booming popularity as a visitor destination, house price acceleration, the shifting demographic, the rising pressure on local infrastructure and services; all these things are moving rapidly.

As a Council they need to, not only keep up with this change, but be several steps ahead of it, making sure that they not only make the changes they need to meet the new pressures it brings, but also that they seize every single opportunity that comes their way to create jobs and opportunities for residents.

Today, Hackney does not have a service welcoming new residents to the borough. New residents are unlikely to be aware of the range of services the Council offers and where to get council and area information which could be of use to them. Hackney wanted to know how technology, data and a design-led approach could make them better at welcoming new residents.

The work

We started by conducting user research to establish the demand for a welcome service, what the service might look like and what the benefits for both residents and the Council would be. Our focus was on both council housing and private tenants, whom we approached to gather this first-hand information from. Following interviews with key stakeholders and residents, we mapped the user journey to better understand the moving in process.

Over 70,000 people are believed to move into Hackney every five years, and on moving into the borough, services that may be triggered include registering for council tax, getting a parking permit, finding out about household waste collection times, registering to vote, or applying for a school place.

Based on our user research, we developed two welcome service prototypes for testing with residents. These options were designed around the different needs of the residents. They both focused on joining up services and utilising the technology marketplace to help residents more easily navigate council information, find information and engage with council services by promoting access through the council’s website, focused around key life events. One of the prototypes followed an initial one-page overview of information approach and the other aimed to be more of a concierge guide through the moving in process.