A slightly blurred image shows a person running on a paved surface. In the foreground, a puddle reflects the out-of-focus skyline of Chicago in the distance. The sky is light, suggesting either dawn or dusk.

Chicago Housing Authority

Improving Vital Services with Data-Informed Design

A site modernization to support residents

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) provides affordable housing to over 65,000 households in the Chicago area. The CHA website is the digital portal for this vital work, offering information, points of contact, and a digital application interface for those seeking affordable housing options.

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When CHA was looking to update its website, they had a clear ultimate goal in mind: to make applying for housing as easy as possible. They wanted the website to empower the citizens of Chicago to self-serve: to find readily accessible information about the CHA’s services and housing. They selected Palantir.net as their partner to audit their current presence, conduct in-depth user research and testing, and build a new Drupal 10 site that was crisp, accessible, and intuitive.

In terms of ease of use, their old Drupal 7 website had room for improvement. “It was information overload,” said Syed Aqueel, a Senior Business Solutions Analyst and Project Manager of CHA. “It just wasn’t really intuitive.” Mega-menus and hundreds of obsolete or inaccessible documents made site navigation challenging. A patchwork of content structures, content pitched at different reading levels, and duplicated property data also contributed to an inconsistent user experience across the site.

They also wanted a new look and feel, capitalizing on imagery and visual branding they were using in their offline marketing materials. Beyond the design, they were also looking for a backend that empowered the internal team to handle governance and site updates independently in the future.

CHA decided to partner with external consultants to leverage expertise in conducting user interviews and testing, and use the findings as a basis for development and design. After considering multiple options, they selected us to help build a digital presence that the citizens of Chicago could trust.

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A multi-faceted approach to understanding site visitors’ needs

We used a range of UX methods and techniques to develop information architecture and design that would meet the needs of both CHA staff and constituents. The foundations of our audit and user research were conversations with the people who would be accessing the site every day: people in Chicago seeking affordable housing and the staff who maintain the site. We used techniques such as top tasks, tree testing and card sorting to identify what matters most to site visitors, and how or where they expect to find certain types of information.

CHA’s website serves multiple different groups, and this was reflected in the top tasks we identified: apply for housing, explore resources for property owners, and browse services and programs for existing residents. We harnessed this data by placing these tasks front and center in the new design, while also providing clear navigation routes to secondary and tertiary tasks. Additional usability testing allowed us to further refine these pathways. For example, we found that site visitors successfully accessed the application portal more frequently when the top task was phrased as “apply for housing” rather than “find a home”.

These tests also proved valuable in determining how content should be grouped and presented in the site navigation. For instance, the previous information architecture grouped together resources for existing and prospective residents into one mega-menu. Stakeholder interviews revealed that these two groups had markedly different needs from their time on site. The new navigation now features separate top-level menus for “Applicants” and “Residents”, allowing each group to more readily access resources targeted to them.

Sustainable, accessible, and repeatable design

Fuelled by research and testing, we took a lot of what CHA already had in place— such as existing website structures, imagery of communities and properties, and property data— and modified it to work better for website visitors.

The new site launched in late 2024, providing the residents of Chicago with a clean, user-friendly interface for accessing CHA services. We delivered:

A new Drupal 10 site from scratch, reusing 60% of CHA’s existing content structures to avoid duplicating work
New public property listings pages, integrated with CHA’s database to allow applicants to browse and evaluate different properties
Featured property pages, to intuitively direct applicants towards properties with shorter waiting times
A new information architecture, and streamlined look and feel for the site
A custom design system with reusable components that CHA can use for accessible, flexible landing page design into the future
New access permissions hierarchy in the backend to support CHA’s content governance efforts
Accessibility testing and compliance across the platform, including implementing a 4th grade reading level across the site, and
New iconography to provide consistent page structure and visual cues for site visitors with lower reading comprehension levels

“Building websites is what Palantir does. But they also facilitated data collection through extensive interviews, provided us with a roadmap, and really listened to us at every stage of working together,” Syed said. “They helped tremendously with getting us across that finish line, and providing a service that keeps everyone happy and satisfied.”

Looking to the future

CHA opted for Palantir’s Continuous Delivery Portfolio (CDP); we’ll continue to work on new feature buildout, maintenance, security updates, site improvements, and supporting content governance in the years to come.

What’s more, the work we undertook for CHA is already empowering them to make powerful improvements independently. To maximize the new property pages we designed for them, CHA cleaned and de-duplicated their property data, and used our design system to refresh their housing application portal.

For support in building digital experiences that support users and empower internal teams, get in touch.

Webpage for Altgeld-Murray Homes, a Chicago public housing program, shows building photo, application steps (review eligibility, apply), target audience (families/individuals), location (Riverdale), nearby intersection, and estimated wait times by bedroom size. Links to program details and FAQ are provided.

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