Peace House
A mobile platform connecting communities to affordable housing resources, support services, and peaceful living environments.
Fragmented Housing Access
People seeking affordable housing often struggle with multiple platforms, confusing requirements, and unreliable listings — creating a stressful and time-consuming search process.
Centralised Support Platform
Peace House simplifies the journey by providing verified housing listings, support services, and clear application pathways within one accessible mobile experience.
Human-Centred UX
The design focuses on empathy, clarity, and trust — helping users discover housing, connect with support workers, and navigate applications with confidence.
Peace House is a mobile application designed to bridge the gap between individuals seeking affordable housing and the resources available to them. The platform enables users to discover listings, access community support services, and connect with social workers from a single interface.
The project focused on reducing friction in the housing search process, particularly for vulnerable users who may face language barriers, limited digital literacy, or systemic disadvantages. The experience was designed to be simple, calm, and supportive.
Through user research, iterative prototyping, and usability testing, the final design delivers a trustworthy and human-centred solution that provides clear pathways to stable housing and community support.
What we set out
to achieve
Simplify the housing search experience
Reduce the cognitive load of finding housing by presenting listings in a clear, filterable, and human-centred format that works for users of all abilities.
Connect users to support services
Create direct pathways to social workers, community programs, and emergency resources so users never feel alone in their housing journey.
Build trust through transparency
Ensure listings are verified, contacts are real, and application processes are clearly explained — eliminating scams and confusion for vulnerable users.
Our design toolkit
Figma
Primary design and prototyping tool for all wireframes, components, and high-fidelity screens.
FigJam
Collaborative whiteboarding for user flows, affinity mapping, and ideation workshops.
Maze
Remote unmoderated usability testing to gather quantitative data on task completion rates.
Notion
Documentation, research synthesis, interview notes, and project management throughout the sprint.
Double Diamond
methodology
Empathize
User interviews, contextual inquiry, desk research, and competitive analysis to understand the problem space.
Define
Synthesis of research into personas, user journey maps, and a clear problem statement to focus design efforts.
Ideate
Sketching sessions, How Might We questions, crazy 8s, and dot voting to generate and prioritise solutions.
Prototype
Low-fidelity wireframes iterated into a high-fidelity, interactive Figma prototype ready for testing.
Test
Remote and in-person usability sessions with target users, feeding back into design iterations.
Empathize
We began by deeply immersing ourselves in the experiences of people seeking affordable housing. Through qualitative interviews, observational research, and review of existing services, we uncovered the core pain points users face when navigating housing systems.
Five in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals from diverse backgrounds, including young families, seniors, and people with disabilities. Key themes emerged around confusion, mistrust, and the emotional burden of housing insecurity.
Secondary research into housing charities and government platforms revealed common usability failures — dense language, inaccessible design, and a lack of human connection in digital services.
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Overwhelming complexity — Users felt lost navigating multiple government and charity websites with conflicting information.
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Lack of trust — Many had encountered scam listings and felt anxious about sharing personal information online.
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Emotional fatigue — The process of repeatedly applying and being rejected created significant emotional strain.
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No single source — Users had to cross-reference 5+ sources just to understand eligibility for a single listing.
Define & User Persona
Using the insights from our research, we synthesised our findings into a primary user persona — a representation of the most common needs, frustrations, and goals among our target users.
This persona guided every design decision throughout the project, ensuring we remained grounded in real user needs rather than assumptions.
“People seeking affordable housing need a trustworthy, simple, and emotionally supportive digital platform — because the current system is fragmented, confusing, and dehumanising.”
Riya Malik
Ideate
With a clear problem statement and persona, we moved into structured ideation. Using How Might We questions, Crazy 8s, and collaborative FigJam sessions, we generated a wide range of potential solutions before converging on the most promising directions through dot voting.
💡 HMW make listings feel human?
Show the landlord or housing worker’s face, add a short audio introduction, allow users to ask questions before applying. Remove the clinical, form-like feel of traditional listings.
Ideas: Video snippets, chat before apply, community reviews
🗺️ HMW reduce the number of steps?
Create a smart eligibility checker that pre-filters listings based on income, family size, and location — so users only see what they can actually access. One profile, used everywhere.
Ideas: Profile passport, quick apply, saved criteria
🤝 HMW connect users to help?
Integrate a live chat with trained housing advisors. Show a “Help” button persistently throughout the app. Create community forums where users share tips and lived experiences.
Ideas: Advisor chat, peer communities, emergency escalation
🔒 HMW build trust?
Show a verification badge on all listings. Display reviews from previous tenants. Provide a clear privacy policy in plain language. Never share data without explicit consent.
Ideas: Verified badge, tenant reviews, data transparency panel
Prototype
