Making it easy to find and apply for the perfect apartment

Asuntosäätiö provides around 18,000 homes across more than 30 locations in Finland, housing about 35,000 residents. Most of the apartments are right-of-occupancy homes, but rental and owner-occupied properties are also available. 

Asuntosäätiö is a non-profit organization, and the funds generated are reinvested into property development and the construction of new housing. Currently, Asuntosäätiö initiates the production of about 400 new apartments annually. 

In the website redesign project, the preparation and procurement phases were handled by North Patrol, a consulting agency experienced in managing large website project procurements. Based on the competitive tendering process designed by North Patrol, Knowit Experience was chosen as the implementation partner for the project.

With the help of North Patrol, WordPress was selected as the publishing platform for the redesign. The significant market share of WordPress also made it an easier decision. 

One of the key goals of the redesign was to improve the customer experience. The user experience of the old site was not at the desired level, which contributed to an additional workload for Asuntosäätiö's customer service. The goal was to make browsing apartments and finding information, as well as submitting an application, as easy as possible. Additionally, mobile usability was identified as one of the most important objectives of the project. 

The primary target groups for the service are individuals looking for housing and current Asuntosäätiö residents, each of which has different needs regarding the website. 

The service is also crucial for Asuntosäätiö’s employees, who often use it to look up information. For example, if customer service needs to find the floor plan of a specific apartment, it’s easiest to do so via the website. 

During the design phase, particular attention was paid to making the apartment search as easy and intuitive as possible. This was not a simple task because Asuntosäätiö has a diverse range of housing options. Most of the homes are right-of-occupancy properties, but there are also rental and owner-occupied homes, as well as plots and commercial spaces. Each of these had its own specific needs and constraints, which had to be considered in the implementation. 

The visual design of the service was based on Asuntosäätiö’s graphic guidelines. However, since the guidelines did not address digital services, a visual line suitable for the online environment was created during the project. 

Customer journeys were streamlined by offering shortcuts to essential functions, such as applying for right-of-occupancy and a queue number for a right-of-occupancy home, which are critical for visitors seeking housing. Compared to the previous site, the new site aimed to significantly increase editorial content, which was also taken into account during the design. 

Additionally, the project included a more comprehensive English-language version to improve the user experience for non-Finnish-speaking customers. 

The redesign was implemented so that website administrators could manage content more efficiently using the Gutenberg block editor in WordPress. Several custom blocks were created to simplify content production, offering a modular way to produce and format different types of pages. 

The site’s content is categorized into different content types, with some, such as available apartments or announcements, being pulled onto the site through integrations developed during the project. 

Apartment and property information is managed through Visma’s Tampuuri system. Given the large amount of data pulled from the system, a separate integration service was developed using the Laravel framework to handle data imports. This integration service is responsible for structuring the information into its own database and for storing property images in an object-based file system. The vast amount of apartment catalog images is not handled within WordPress but is instead displayed on the site using Cloudflare’s image optimization service.  

As a result of the integration service, WordPress is able to function as a nimble publishing system, unburdened by repeated import processes. The website and integration service communicate via APIs and webhooks. 

The apartment search, central to the website’s functionality, was implemented as a separate React application to provide an optimal user experience and a flexible framework for future development. The native database structure of WordPress can sometimes be slow when conducting searches with multiple criteria across large datasets. This challenge was solved with a separate, automatically updating search index. 

The apartment application forms were built using the Gravity Forms plugin, providing a simple way to create forms and build related post-processing tasks. The solution was customized extensively while ensuring maintainability and upgradability. The implementation of the forms also accounted for user privacy and the careful removal of personal data. 

Throughout the project, Jira was used to manage and track tasks, allowing Asuntosäätiö to monitor progress transparently. Communication between teams remained close and continuous throughout the entire project, supported by daily status meetings. 

The revamped website has been well-received, with users praising its modern and fresh look. The redesign also allowed for more focus on the marketing of the online service, such as wider distribution of content articles on social media and publishing content from Asuntosäätiö’s "Kotimaisema" resident magazine online. 

The usage of the new site has been monitored with Google Analytics 4 and Mouseflow, and the number of visitors to the site increased significantly. Data from Mouseflow’s heat maps has been used to plan further development. 

Post-launch, the site has continued to be improved. Regular monthly meetings with the client are held to decide on the next development tasks, and progress is tracked in weekly meetings. Jira, implemented during the project, continues to be used, enabling Asuntosäätiö to track development progress by task. 

One of the key goals of the ongoing development is to ensure even better accessibility. In addition to regular accessibility testing, customer feedback received via customer service is also considered in the development. 

New projects have already been undertaken within the scope of further development. One of the most significant was the transition to Salesforce’s CRM system, which we have supported through a phased rollout in collaboration with Salesforce consultancy firm Fluido. 

Explore Asuntosäätiö’s redesigned online service here: www.asuntosaatio.fi 

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